You can accuse Asamoah "Baby Jet" Gyan of many things, but media savvy isn't one of them. The Ghanaian striker has just emitted a thunderous PR brain-fart by quitting international football "indefinitely". Which is to say, until the next time he can be bothered to represent his country.

Heh? We can safely assume that the Black Stars supporters will not be charmed or impressed by this innovative "trial retirement" from national service. Gyan is going through another patch of feeling unloved by his compatriots after weathering flak for that botched penalty against Zambia in a Nations Cup semifinal. It was his second pivotal penalty miss following a doomed effort against Uruguay's crossbar in a 2010 World Cup quarterfinal.

The awful feeling of deja vu in Bata must have been hard to endure, especially when the wounds of both failures were salted by the sniping of complacent armchair critics who would never have the cojones to step up for a career-defining spotkick with the world looking on.

And, in his defence, Gyan's brand of volatile honesty is usually a welcome antidote to football's conformist regime of plastic platitudes. The game's foremost nutjobs like Mario Balotelli and Joey Barton do us all a favour by airing their batty thoughts.

But Gyan's penchant for self-pity is a factor that aggravates the fans. It doesn't go over well when any elite athlete - blessed with talent, wealth, fame and health - paints himself as a victim without justification.

At least Emmanuel Adebayor, another early retiree from international duties, had a solid justification for calling it a day: the terror attack on his Togo team bus in Angola in 2010.

There's nothing inherently wrong with quitting at age 26, and there is no moral obligation to play for your country in the first place.

International football is mostly a crock these days as most fans will readily admit, and patriotic zeal is an overrated quality at the best of times. We should all be shaking off the mental chains of national pride.

But if you quit, quit. Don't try to leave the back door open with talk of an "indefinite" retirement. Gyan's teammates will not thank him for delegating to them the hard graft of qualifying for the next World Cup. Whenever he does volunteer to serve again, the Ghanaian football authorities should properly respond with a polite: "Thanks, but no thanks."

The problem for the Black Stars and coach Goran Stevanovic, is that Gyan is a powerful, effective forward, and there is no queue of convincing replacements. Jordan Ayew looks exciting but, like his brilliant brother Andre, he doesn't score more than once every 10 games. The loss of Danny Welbeck to England looks increasingly damaging.

Ghana have long struggled to produce strikers of the calibre of their midfielders. As in South Africa, Ghanaian street and playground football is often free of goalposts - whereas in Ivory Coast, goalframes are often painted on a wall by kids when a real one isn't available. It's no mystery why Ivorians produce so many adept finishers.

So Gyan will probably be back, hopefully after locating some common sense during his 'sabbatical'. It's time he grasped that he can't rely on his ample talent alone: he needs to develop some charm, or some grit, or both.