He'd certainly downed tools by the first week of March, he walked off at Stoke to a chorus of 'you're not fit to wear the shirt' (aimed at the team, not specifically him) and that was the last we ever saw of him.
He was clearly more interested in protecting his pretty-boy looks than he was in getting stuck into a relegation battle
Comparing civil rights in the USA to Saudi Arabia is like comparing Fosters and Carling with a good beer.
A number of journos did a lot of reporting on the behind the scenes of the COVID impacted season and what players out of contract were asked to do, so I'm not inclined to lay fault at the players' feet in that situation.
He was out of contract and if he'd sustained a serious injury the club had indicated they were going to chuck him to the side, so why should he give any loyalty back to an organisation showing none to him?
I don’t see it as a question of loyalty. It’s more a question of morality. If you’re paid to do a job, do it to the best of your ability.
Because he was being paid to do a job. Where was his professional pride? (In his bank balance no doubt) As one of the senior pros in the dressing room at that time - he should have been leading by example on and off the pitch. Or maybe he was - maybe he was the "let's down tools" ringleader. If he'd given his all for the club and done the job he was being paid to do then I would no doubt feel differently towards him and how his time here ended. Alternatively, since he had obviously stopped playing, he could have stopped taking his wages - but he didn't do that of course. Hence the reason I said he stole a living form us during the last few months of his time at the club
They weren't being paid. The club tried to negotiate new deals with FOUR players (not just Irvine) to play on a short term basis on the resumption of the season, and none of them agreed, because the club made clear they would not have deals following that and they had no safety net in the case of an injury. So it wasn't a case of 'downing tools' while still being paid, it was a case of not agreeing a new contract because the risk of being left with no job in the middle of a global pandemic wasn't worth it for any of them for what the club was prepared to pay them. I've tried to find the piece done in The Athletic which was pretty critical of the club's handling of it but it might have been taken down by now. Needless to say, I said above I didn't want to rehash all this and I've ended up doing it anyway.
If I remember right, he was still being paid but he in effect lost the normal extra month clubs pay after the season ends, because the club weren't extending his pay for a further month after that extended season ended. Easy to see it from both sides. I think the club were wrong not to pay but I also would like to think that if it was me in that situation then, out of pride and integrity I'd keep playing as well as I could.
He certainly was that season. Up to then he'd been a good player but went off a cliff under McCann. And Syd is about right, although I think it was actually even worse than he's saying. We essentially tried to get those players to play for free during that month at the end of the season when their contracts had ended and unsurprisingly they all said no.
Jon Toral, Kevin Stewart, Dan Batty, Angus MacDonald, Robbie McKenzie and Will Mannion all agreed short term deals to the end of the season, as did loan players Josh Bowler, Matthew Pennington and Herbie Kane. Marcus Maddison, Eric Lichaj, Jackson Irvine and Stephen Kingsley refused and Wilks was refused permission by Barnsley to extend his stay. It was Ehab, so there’s little doubt things were handled badly, but it’s not really surprising that some have little time for the four who wouldn’t hang around (though they were largely ****e anyway).
