Martin O’Neill takes exception to Ronald Koeman criticism

The protagonists may have changed but the feud between Everton and Ireland rumbles on, with Martin O'Neill describing the club's complaints about his treatment of James McCarthy while on international duty last month as "nonsense" and suggesting Ronald Koeman should be "excruciatingly embarrassed" by his "bleating" about the situation.

“He played a game and three-fifths and the next thing I know, I hear they are talking about us overloading him,” said O’Neill. “But he trained on the Thursday, the very day that he [Koeman] was talking. I spoke to James and he said ‘I trained today’ so James is in a difficult situation because Everton pay their wagesand he’s first and foremost an Everton player. But when he comes on international duty and if he’s fit for selection, then he’s got a chance of playing. So I was surprised about it, this idea that we ‘killed’ him.

“He did brilliantly to recover then,” he added sarcastically. “Lazarus. Amazing.”

Problems with Everton over player availability first arose in the Giovanni Trapattoni and Roberto Martínez era. The real problem, though, as O’Neill seemed to suggest yesterday, might be between the two sets of medical staff.

“I think our medical team were pretty disappointed with the comments that were emanating because obviously the manager would be getting something from their physiotherapists.”

Little inclination

O’Neill might have opted to cut out the middle men and speak to his opposite number directly but he showed little inclination to go down that road after Koeman had used the press to put his views across.

“How can you come out and say the player is being ‘killed’ and ‘overloaded’ and then you play him on the Saturday or you have in the squad for Saturday and you put him on in the second half? It was nonsense. Nonsense.

“If I was a manager, I would be excruciatingly embarrassed by it; to turn around and blame somebody for playing. By the way, Seamus Coleman played for us. He didn’t play against Oman. But he played out in Serbia in the game, his first for a while and that game did him the world of good to play for Everton the following week. I didn’t hear them saying ‘You played him in the game’.”

The issue is unlikely to go away anytime soon with O'Neill suggesting that McCarthy might yet play in Vienna despite not having featured since Everton's game against Manchester City on October 15th. McCarthy is struggling with a hamstring problem but is improving "day by day", according to O'Neill, and has a chance of featuring on Saturday week; something Koeman might take issue with at his own press conference this afternoon.

O'Neill has plenty of problems on other fronts with Shane Long out and major doubts over the fitness of John O'Shea, Stephen Ward and Keiren Westwood, who has a recurring back problem.

“We’ve had to cope without players every step of the way and while it’s more difficult for us than it might be for some other countries, and it is a concern, you just curse your luck and get on with it.”

Praised

He has handed first call-ups to Dundalk's Daryl Horgan and central defender Andy Boyle, with both players offered the opportunity to join the rest of extended (35-strong) squad at Abbotstown next week.

O'Neill has regularly praised Dundalk in recent months and admitted yesterday to having been pleasantly surprised by the way the team has coped with its bigger European tests.

But he still made it clear that he has yet to be fully convinced that the players can make the jump from the Airtricity League to international football. And being around the squad for a few days at a time is not, he says, the ideal way to bridge any gap.

“I’m not running a kindergarten, you know. You’re looking for as many ready-made players to play international football. Other clubs are supposed to do that. They have looked at these players but they haven’t taken them on.

“So sometimes you have to take a bit of time to adjust and international football doesn’t really give you the time to do that.

“But do I think the two lads I have chosen are here on merit? You would have to say Horgan definitely does [deserve to be in] and I’m sure, while we’ve got a number of centre-halves at this moment that we’ve relied, Boyle deserves to be in.”