Updated, Monday, 07.29

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND and Manchester United midfielder Darron Gibson has deleted his Twitter account after becoming fed up with the volume of abusive messages he was being sent – within just two hours of setting up his account.

Gibson, who has won 16 senior caps for the Republic and is a fringe member of the United squad, set up a @dgibbo28 account (28 being his shirt number at United) shortly after noon today.

But within two hours, the account had disappeared entirely – after the 23-year-old became apparently unwilling to put up with negative comments about his footballing ability.

Among the comments directed at him were…

[Warning: there's some NSFW language in here:]