James McClean has urged the FAI to “get on with it” and hand John O’Shea the permanent role as Ireland manager.
And he wants the decision to be made sooner rather than later.
Pointing to the England game in the Nations League in September and the desire to get Ireland back to major tournaments, McClean believes there is no more time to waste.
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“We’ve got a lot of work to do here, but we should be… you look at some of the teams who are at the tournament, we should be competing with them teams and (be) better than them teams, and we just haven’t in the past few years,” he said, while on punditry duty for RTE on Friday afternoon.
“But having said that, we need to get the management situation sorted first and foremost to give us the best opportunity, a bit of stability.
“But yeah, we have a lot of work to do going forward to ensure that we qualify for the next tournament.”
As for finding a long-term replacement for Stephen Kenny, McClean said: “The thing is, we’ve got a manager in place, just give him the job and let him get on with it.
“He’s done okay in the four games he’s been in charge of (against Belgium, Switzerland, Hungary and Portugal), just give him the chance, let him put his stamp on things.
“We’ve got England coming up in the Nations League, what are you waiting for? Just give him the job, let him get on with it, give him the best preparation to build up going into that game and let’s take it from there.”
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