Wayne Rooney has without doubt been the most talked about footballer over the past two weeks, but after being dropped by England following Jose Mourinho taking the same decision at club level, we appeared to reach fever pitch.
Everybody has offered their €0.02 on the Manchester United captain, but John Giles still had a few things he wanted to address when it came time to write his regular column for Independent.ie.
Giles believes that Rooney should be playing for England, because they have nobody better, and it is quite clear that the Irish football legend and former RTÉ panelist does not rate Eric Dier one bit.
Across England, fans of the national team sighed and wondered about the future for their team and I have to say, it doesn't look great.
For a start, Rooney at half pace and with one leg in a wellington boot is a better midfield option than Eric Dier or anyone else Southgate had available for the game against Slovenia.
I'm all for new beginnings and clearing out dead wood, but you have to have bright new people to man the barricades when you take out old soldiers.
That's quality from Gilesy, although we're sure every Spurs fan would disagree.
When it comes to the actual way in which Southgate dropped Rooney, Giles also has an issue as he feels that doing it publicly before the game was Southgate's way of drawing attention to himself while giving the media and fans what they want.
It was unnecessarily cruel to Rooney and when you actually look at what happened, it wasn't a very ruthless at all.
If Southgate had dropped him, said nothing and announced his team to the world an hour before kick-off, that would have been a pragmatic move by a good manager and a ruthless act, in its own way.By doing what everyone was telling him to do, Southgate followed the herd while he made his big point.
It's an interesting take from Giles, although it seems clear that the FA will look elsewhere when it comes to appointing a permanent manager as Gareth Southgate failed to get a decent performance from his side in the games against Malta and Slovenia.
Meanwhile, we can't get the image of Rooney in a welly boot running rings around Eric Dier.
You can read Giles' column in full over on Independent.ie.
