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20th June 2023
12:50pm BST
James McClean of Republic of Ireland after the UEFA EURO 2024 Championship qualifying match against Gibraltar at the Aviva Stadium. (Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile)[/caption]
"We have a tendency here to jump to conclusions, especially when it is a negative. Look, we are only three games in. We have that game at home with Greece. We have to win that. We've still got the Dutch to play, twice, and France away, and Gibraltar. "There's a lot of games to play. Points are going to be taken off each other. We just have to make sure we have the least [amount of points] taken off us." "We're all in this together," he added. "Ideally we'd love to have the media on our side, a bit of positivity would help, especially with a young squad."https://twitter.com/RTEsoccer/status/1670902436117225473 Of course, it is not the role of the media to be a cheerleader, or to gloss over clear failings, of a national team. This Ireland team has a number of shortcomings, for all their passion and endeavour, and having an open discussion around that would ideally lead to improvements. It is only when critiques of managers and players gets personal, and pushes past the usual sporting boundaries, that it should be kept in check. It is naïve, though, to think you can keep selecting young players and telling the media to leave off because you have young players in your squad. Added to that point, nine players in that current Ireland squad are aged 25 and over. That squad has a combined caps total of 471 games. "I said to the lads in the huddle, tonight," McClean revealed, "that to create something special, it has to begin somewhere, and let's make sure that this is the first step in hopefully qualifying for Germany [and the Euros]."
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