The Martin O'Neill and Ronald Koeman feud rumbles on.
First, Ronald Koeman complained about McCarthy playing for Ireland against Georgia and Moldova:
First be fit, train with your club then you are ready for the national team. Not vice versa.
Koeman said a couple of weeks ago that "the best" thing for himself and O'Neill to do would be to "stop" talking about each other in public. But any hope of that happening died when O'Neill criticised Koeman for "bleating" about McCarthy and Roy Keane weighed in a couple of days later saying he "couldn't care less" about the Everton manager's opinions.
And Koeman will surely find it hard to resist replying to O'Neill after the Derryman's latest comments on the matter.
Talking to Ger Gilroy of Newstalk, O'Neill said that "if anything it might have helped (McCarthy)" playing for Ireland in the two games and made it clear that he took a dim view of Koeman's complaints:
(McCarthy) goes back to Everton (after the games) and he's fit.
Then the next thing I hear that the manager is saying that we've killed him, which is a slight against our medical staff, and all of us. So Lazarus returns immediately! On the very day he's talking about it, James McCarthy had actually trained for Everton and was available two days later, and makes the bench and comes on to play.
If James had missed out the next three or four weeks because Everton were trying to take care of him, I could possibly have understood the argument.
And O'Neill made an interesting point about how quick people are to criticise managers, especially in the Premier League, after a couple of bad results.
I think people are, more so than ever before...maybe it's social media, maybe it's media, maybe it's all of those things...jump to conclusions very quickly. I've had to live with this here too.
In the same time we drew with Scotland, we were not out of the competition. It was doom and gloom around the place, and we've fought and gone through.
You can watch the full interview between Ger Gilroy and Martin O'Neill for Newstalk below:
