SOMETIMES what you see – or don’t see – is more revealing than what is said.
Northern Ireland manager Michael O’Neill denied that the five players who sat out training yesterday will be the same five who won’t be part of his 23-man squad to go to Euro 2016.
However, the likelihood is that Liam Boyce, Daniel Lafferty, Billy McKay, Ben Reeves, and Michael Smith won’t be heading off to the training camp in Austria on Monday before going on to France.
Shane Ferguson was also absent but that’s because he will be involved with his club Millwall in the English League One play-off final at Wembley on Sunday.
If those absentees are confirmed in Saturday’s official squad announcement then it will mean good news for Wigan striker Will Grigg, right-back Lee Hodson, and versatile defender Luke McCullough, all of whom may have been worrying over their involvement in O’Neill’s panel.
Asked if there was any significance to those five particular players missing training yesterday [Thursday], O’Neill responded: “No, we gave some of the boys a day [off]. Those lads have been in [training] consistently for nine, 10 days so we gave them a day off. They’ll come back in [Friday], so there was nothing sinister or anything else in that.”
Pressed on when the players who don’t make the cut were to be told, O’Neill replied: “I’ll wait until later on.” He then continued: “That’s a personal thing. Those conversations are not pleasant conversations but I’ll announce the squad on Saturday so obviously I’ll be speaking to the lads before then.”
O’Neill was more convincing in playing down the important of tonight’s friendly against Belarus in terms of affecting squad selection, saying that the match “isn’t about trying to give someone an opportunity to clinch their place in the squad. I’ve known the majority of the make-up of the squad since qualification.
“The main thing for me, the purpose of the two weeks [training], as opposed to coming out and naming a 23-man squad perhaps 10 days ago was to give those players an opportunity.
“We have a number of players who haven’t played as much first team football as we would have liked so you have to assess them somehow. If you can’t see them playing for their clubs how do you assess them?
“Those players had obviously played a part in the campaign, some more than others, so it was important that they still felt an involvement in it, and we brought them together.
“The two weeks’ preparation we’ve had to date has been more important in assessing them for selection than throwing them in and saying ‘Right, give me a good 45 minutes and I’m going to select you off that basis’.
“Realistically, what we see [against Belarus] is as good as 99 per cent what we expect to see going to France.”
O’Neill envisages tonight’s match as more about players trying to break into the starting side rather than the squad, which should help in continuing the 10-game unbeaten streak:
“I want to continue with the run we are on. The players do too. Every player has their own agenda going into the finals. It’s fairly clear they all want to start. They all see an opportunity to force their way in.
“We played about with the team against Slovenia and it was positive, and against Wales without dramatically changing it. One of the things about this squad is that I need flexibility. We don’t have two players for every position”.
