Dunphy – and Damien Duff – are of the view that Wes is peculiarly unpopular with Martin O’Neill. According to Eamo, O’Neill is “curiously reluctant to acknowledge Wes’s contribution.”
O’Neill possibly believes that Wes gets enough praise without him needing to chime in. Eamo takes a dim view. And he made another ‘grand’ claim on the part of Wes. Although, really, we could argue about how grand a claim it is.
”He doesn’t play Wes except when it’s absolutely unavoidable. He refuses to name him in his praise. He was glowing in his praise of James McClean but as Damien Duff observed on RTE last night, he seems curiously reluctant to acknowledge Wes’s contribution, which is outstanding, of course. We’ve got Austria and Wales in the next three games and if we start with the centre halves we started with last night and if we start without Wes Hoolahan, we ain’t going to the World Cup.
Nothing that happened in Wales last night validates stupidity on our part. And the stupidity on our part is that we have a player who’d probably get into the England team, cos I saw England as well, and I saw France play Bulgaria. I was watching football all weekend. And there’s very few players, if any, better than Wes Hooligan.”
Clearly Eamonn Dunphy thinks very highly of Wes Hoolahan, and with good reason too.