{"id":578276,"date":"2026-08-01T03:58:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:58:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578276\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T03:58:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T03:58:14","slug":"james-mcclean-derry-city-have-issue-somewhere-says-ex-republic-of-ireland-midfielder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/578276\/","title":{"rendered":"James McClean: Derry City have ‘issue somewhere’ says ex-Republic of Ireland midfielder"},"content":{"rendered":"

James McClean has said Derry City’s European form is not the result of a “lack of effort” but instead shows an “issue somewhere” within the club.<\/p>\n

The former Republic of Ireland and Sunderland midfielder returned to his hometown club from Wrexham in January but neither his nor the Candystripes’ season has lived up to expectation with the 37-year-old voicing his dissatisfaction<\/a> last month. <\/p>\n

After finishing second in the League of Ireland last year, Tiernan Lynch’s side are languishing in sixth this time around and exited the Uefa Conference League at the second qualifying round on Thursday evening after a pair of 1-0 defeats by Croatian side Rijeka in their two-legged tie.<\/p>\n

That followed a 5-3 aggregate loss to CSKA Sofia in the first qualifying round of the Europa League and Lynch called for his side to be “a little bit braver”<\/a> in such games.<\/p>\n

McClean, who was not included in the squad on Thursday, does not feel blame is with the players.<\/p>\n

“If you watch the games, the lads aren’t losing these games based on lack of effort. So clearly there is an issue somewhere,” McClean posted on Instagram.<\/p>\n

“Given [I] am around it every day and have the CV to give my opinion, I think I’ll give it whether anyone likes it or not.<\/p>\n

“If you don’t like it, then you’ll excuse me for not caring about your opinion, given that 99.9% that have a lot to say have never played a professional game in their lives.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"James McClean has said Derry City’s European form is not the result of a “lack of effort” but…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":578277,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-578276","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578276","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=578276"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/578276\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/578277"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=578276"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=578276"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=578276"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}