“On the pitch, there’d have been murder.”
Eamon Dunphy harkened back to his Millwall days during his condemnation of James McCarthy’s performance for the Republic of Ireland on Saturday.
McCarthy dived in on a challenge on Kevin de Bruyne early in the second half which freed up the space for the Belgian midfielder to run into before he teed up Romelu Lukaku for the game’s opening goal.
Then, less than fifteen minutes later, McCarthy was at fault as he failed to track the run of Axel Witsel who headed Belgium into a 2-0 lead in Bordeaux and, from there, it was game over.
Speaking in his capacity as RTÉ curmudgeon/pundit, Dunphy laid into the 25-year-old after the game.
“I couldn’t imagine any good pro doing that,” Dunphy said.
Eamon Dunphy and Liam Brady discuss the performance of James McCarthy. https://t.co/DitN2GaDtv
— RTÉ Soccer (@RTEsoccer) June 18, 2016
“I played for Millwall and I don’t think any of our players would have let [that happen].
“I’ll tell you what, there would have been hell to pay. On the pitch, there’d have been murder.”
Liam Brady echoed Dunphy’s sentiments by criticising the Everton midfielder’s tendency to lose concentration at key moments.
Brady added: “He [McCarthy] can’t afford to be rash which he was with the first one or he can’t afford to lose his concentration with the second one.
“He knew Witsel was there. So you watch him! You watch the ball and you watch the player. In the end, he just watched the ball. He just stared at the ball and Witsel just crept in there behind him and boom.”
