When Birmingham midfielder Stephen Gleeson explained that it's 'easier to get in to the England squad' than it is to get into the Ireland one, you have to think he may have been hoping Martin O'Neill was listening. Gleeson is very much on the periphery of O'Neill's vision at this moment in time but he may have done some of his fellow Irish midfielders no harm in bringing that idea to a public forum.
Gleeson stated his belief that the Irish management team are rather fixed in their squad selections or, at least, they have been over the past couple of years. While the 27 year old certainly wasn't complaining he may have had a point. The numbers available to O'Neill aren't exactly huge but there was times near the end of the qualifying campaign where he maybe could have taken a wider look, particularly when it came to his midfield options.
League of Ireland advocates were crying out for Richie Towell to get a look in and, while Harry Arter did manage to make his debut, the continued absence of Alan Judge was a bit of a head scratcher.
Judge has been one of the Championship's stand out performers this season and there were certainly moments when he could have made his senior international debut. He did make the squad against Bosnia in Zenica but, at 27, he's still waiting for a senior cap.
So has O'Neill left it too late to give the in-form players a chance before the final Euro 2016 squad is named? According to the man himself, there's still time and he specifically mentioned Judge as one who could make a late play for the 23 man squad.
There are places there definitely up for grabs.
We've a number of players I'd like to see. I mentioned the last time that we've got these games in March and there's a couple of players that have been on the periphery of things that have not had a chance and could maybe have thought they should have had a chance, players like Alan Judge, for instance, who is doing very, very well, so I'd like to include them.
I don't want to give out caps by a nilly willy basis but by the same token here, there's one or two players who are doing very well and might just deserve that chance at international level.
The March friendlies against Switzerland and Slovakia are the obvious markers for the likes of Judge. Barring injury, the Brentford man will surely make his debut at that point and O'Neill did go on to say that if anyone wants to do what James McClean did ahead of Euro 2012, then those March fixtures are the ones which need to be looked at that.
As things stand, we've predicted that there's two midfield spots up for grabs (see below). Harry Arter, David Meyler and Aiden McGeady may be the ones looking over their shoulder at the moment and with Judge in flying form and Towell having made his debut for Brighton this weekend, the final squad looks far from set if O'Neill is to be believed.
