West Brom lost 1-0 to Huddersfield on Saturday afternoon, extending their run without a victory in the Premier League to nine games.
James McClean entered the action with 30 minutes to go as a replacement for Grzegorz Krychowiak. An injury time save from Jonas Loessl would deny the Ireland international a late equaliser.
A tackle on Tom Ince deep into injury time would earn McClean a yellow card. The highlighting of the tackle on Match of the Day annoyed McClean as the programme failed to acknowledge the projectiles thrown from the crowd which accompanied the vocal reaction.
On Instagram earlier in the evening, McClean had called those who threw the objects "cowards not hard men".
Frustrating is the best word to describe today.. p.s launching bottles and other objects from up in the stands make you cowards not hard men.
The spotlight was always going to be on McClean yesterday. Next weekend is Remembrance Sunday and, as there are no Premier League games scheduled due to international fixtures, yesterday was the annual Why Doesn't James McClean Wear A Poppy Day?
McClean's reasons for choosing not to wear the poppy are well documented. In 2015 he wrote in a West Brom match day programme:
People say I am being disrespectful but don’t ask why I choose not to wear it. If the poppy was simply about World War One and Two victims alone, I’d wear it without a problem. I would wear it every day of the year if that was the thing but it doesn’t. It stands for all the conflicts that Britain has been involved in. Because of the history where I come from in Derry, I cannot wear something that represents that.
