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Martin O'Neill: I told James McClean to go out and play like Damien Duff
13 May 2012 10:10:00
Sunderland manager says he asked the Derry born star to emulate another Irish winger and also welcomed his decision to quit Twitter
Martin O'Neill has revealed he told James McClean to go out and play like Damien Duff and hopes the winger becomes as adept on both flanks as the Fulham star.McClean was called up into Giovanni Trapattoni's 23-man squad for Euro 2012 and the Italian veteran is expected to trial him out on the right wing as well as his regular left during training.
"I said to James in training that I wanted him to go and play a wee bit in the fashion of someone like Damien Duff and people like that so he has the ability next season to play on either flank, and that would be great," O'Neill told RTE.
He added: "If Trapattoni uses him in that fashion, that will be great. It will save me the bother."
The Sunderland manager welcomed McClean's decision to quit Twitter after receiving death threats on the social network after making Ireland's Euro 2012 squad. McClean, who represented Northern Ireland at youth level, received advice to stop tweeting and pulled his account shortly after receiving the abusive messages.
O'Neill, who played for Northern Ireland, said: "It didn't exist in my time, but it is something that has cropped up now, the possibility of playing for either side, and that's something that James has done.
"He has been on twittering and he has been doing that for some time. He has been given advice in closing the account down, so at least that's gone. He is going to get some sort of a reaction to it from somewhere, but I am not so sure he should be reacting to the reactions, as it were.
"Whether it's the end of it or not (I don't know) ...but at least the Twitter account has gone."
McClean will meet up with his Republic of Ireland team-mates next week to commence preparations for Euro 2012.
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