by Ben Blake reporting from Glasgow
MARTIN O’NEILL HAS drawn a line under the incident at the Ireland team hotel and insists his team are “ready to go” ahead of the meeting with Scotland.
Assistant manager Roy Keane was allegedly involved in a bust-up before the squad departed for Glasgow, which prompted the FAI to release a statement and O’Neill to throw his support behind his right-hand man.
On the eve of an highly-significant Euro 2016 qualifier, O’Neill held his pre-match press conference outside Celtic Park and inevitably fielded questions about the what happened in Portmarnock.
“It’s only a distraction,” O’Neill responded, without giving any further details. “I think that’s all it was. I made a statement earlier today and I think there’s not really much more that I can talk about it.
“We’re fine and the players are fine. The man in question is fine too and we’re ready to go. The incident is over and that’s it.”
Having lost two of his regular in James McCarthy and Glenn Whelan to injury today, the Ireland boss has less than 24 to decide upon which line-up to name against Gordon Strachan’s men with Darron Gibson, Jeff Hendrick, Stephen Quinn and David Meyler all in the fray for a midfield starting berth.
“Naturally they are (a blow),” O’Neill said. “Glenn has played games for us recently but hurt himself in Germany and hadn’t really done that much training but was hopeful himself. This week he had training with us was exactly what he would have been doing with Stoke. But yesterday he didn’t feel he had done enough work to contemplate choosing for the team.
“James was always an outside chance. He has improved immensely since Sunday and in fact he went for a scan and it is quite clear so that is good news for the lad.
“As it’s a muscle injury, he needed to probably do something today and see what reaction he had. It’s better not to risk him for the length of time.”
Everton midfielder Gibson has made just three Premier League appearances this season, all of which were from the bench, but O’Neill may throw his fellow Derryman in despite concerns that he may not be 100 per cent match fit.
“If he is chosen in the game then he will have to be up to it. We can’t do anything about that and it’s always going to be the case that we are going to have one or two players who are important for us that might not have played too much at club level.
“I’m not to sure that Darron has started a league game but if he’s chosen in the team then he knows what he has to do. He got some game time on Sunday when Gareth Barry was injured so that might help.”
