Wrexham took another baby step towards automatic promotion with a win over Stockport County today, but James McClean found himself in the eye of the storm again.
The Welsh club won 1-0 thanks to a Jay Rodriguez goal from the rebound of a penalty he missed.
It was the awarding of the penalty that had both Stockport's manager and his supporters angry on Saturday.
McClean and Stockport defender Ibou Touray were contesting a free kick near the goal-line in the first half of the game, right in front of the Wrexham supporters.
There was contact between the two, and the Derryman headed the ball back into play, and off Touray's arm, before it bounced out of play.
Ref Simon Mather awarded a corner kick, much to the chagrin of McClean, who believed Wrexham deserved a penalty.
McClean protested to Mather and continued to protest to the linesman as he stood over the corner.
Unusually, the linesman called the ref over soon after, and after a brief conversation, a penalty was awarded.
The goal that Rodriguez would score off that penalty would be the difference between the two teams.
Let's see who really decided it was a pen pic.twitter.com/LqlLyaoUpB
— Kevin Richardson (@CountyKev82) March 22, 2025
Stockport manager furious with McClean's role in penalty
Stockport County manager Dave Challinor tried his best to avoid a suspension with his analysis of the incident, but he was clearly angry with the decision.
"First off, I'm not going to get myself into trouble over it by saying what I probably truly believe," Challinor said.
"But if you're going to get involved in situations, I've just spoke to the referee and the officials, although they didn't say much back.
"If you're going to get involved in situations, my argument would be, 'What have you seen?', because you've got a flag.
"If you believe there's a foul, everywhere else I've seen, you wave your flag, now I've been told that they're not allowed to do that anymore, you've got to talk to each other on comms.
"Regardless of that, it's never been a penalty. It's never been a penalty.
"There can be arguments, potentially for the decision before when Sam Smith goes down under the pressure of Ethan Pye.
"There can be arguments there, now I've not seen that back closely, but that's more of a penalty then that, that he's given.
"And for a linesman to get involved on the far side of the pitch and do nothing else in the game and cost us - not cost us three points - because we wasn't good enough to score and didn't create much opportunities.
"But to cost us a point and flip the momentum in the first half is down to another really, really poor decision in my eyes, where we're talking about not two teams playing football.
Stockport County fans meanwhile vented their frustrations with McClean both from the terraces and social media.
McClean meanwhile posted a photo of himself on Instagram blowing a kiss to the travelling fans.
James McClean absolutely loving it, rattling that Stockport lot some more, who are still going on about their 5-0 from last season when they're currently sat 9 points behind us 👋🏻 😂 pic.twitter.com/4GVUeonXal
— Vikki (@Vik7788) March 22, 2025
Wrexham are three points above third place Wycombe - who have a game in hand - with just 8 games left to play in the season.
