Many Irish footballers can credit Don Givens as a big reason for their development. The 66-year-old was the boss of the Republic of Ireland U-21s during the entire 2000's. He oversaw the development of a lot of Ireland's best talents - James McCarthy, Aiden McGeady, Darren O'Dea, and Glenn Whelan - but one player that he was never a fan of was Anthony Stokes.
Stokes is having a tough time of things in Celtic at the moment, with his twitter outburst at manager Ronny Deila leading to a two week ban. Givens had his own issues with Stokes in the past, most notably in 2007 when Stokes failed to turn up for a game against Germany.
Givens thinks that Stokes demeanour and the advice he was given early in his career meant he was never going to be a good pro:
Anthony had these little misdemeanours from a reasonably early age and I’m not sure he was guided very well. I just sensed with Anthony that he was never going to be a real good professional and in the long run those players get found out.
Referring to his unprofessional tweet after being frozen out of the team, Givens says:
Keane was trying it in 2007 and Deila is still trying it in 2015.
Givens is still clearly stung by Stokes' failure to turn up for him in the U-21's, but admits that Stokes still has talent:
But one thing I will say is that it means the talent is still there because if it wasn’t then you’d have washed your hands of him a long time ago.
Whether Givens is right, and Stokes manages to turn it around is uncertain. Deila did seem to hint that he wanted Stokes to stay in Celtic despite rumours that the forward was going to leave in January.
See Also: Ronny Deila Hands Anthony Stokes' Celtic Career A Lifeline
Picture credit: Paul Mohan / SPORTSFILE
