By Alan Duffy

Young wideman James McClean has enjoyed a superb breakthrough season with Sunderland, with his surging left wing runs even earning him a place in the Republic of Ireland's preliminary squad for EURO 2012. However, not everyone is happy with the midfielder's success in securing a berth with the Boys In Green.

We Get What We Deserve With Football Punditry - originally posted on Soccerlens.com

Football is the biggest sport in the world.

Its England's national sport, beloved by millions and one of the few things, if not the only thing that really unites us a country and creates any sort of national spirit for a couple of weeks every two years (four or more years if we balls things up and don't even qualify).

So, yesterday completed what was an ideal weekend for us. To add to Chelsea's defeat and our win over Liverpool, Newcastle dropped points at Sunderland while Alan Pardew demonstrated again that he is one of the most ignorant, classless, blustering buffoons ever to manage a football team and has a face that even a mother would love to punch repeatedly.

Challenging the mascot's child-friendly image In England, mascots are cuddly, blundering buffoons with a penchant for winding up opposing fans and scoring penalties. In Mexico, mascots are Satan's pets. At least if you happen to support Club Tijuana, who used their club mascot to scare supporters into buying their new kit.