O’Neill said: “I have included James at this minute. Speaking to him, James is improving day-by-day. If the game for instance was this weekend, he wouldn’t make it. The following weekend? I would say he would be doubtful at this minute. He needs to get some proper training in.”
“He has been doing a little bit, but it’s one of those. I’ll leave him in for the provisional squad and we’ll see how things go. Obviously he wouldn’t make it this week and he would need to something a little bit before that.”
When asked what he thought of Koeman’s comments, O’Neill declared that the Dutchman was “massively overloaded” in his response:
“No I totally refute that as well too obviously, getting an opportunity to respond. Considering that James had declared himself fit, he played the first game. He didn’t come off through injury (against Moldova), he came off through tiredness.”
“And remarkably he actually trained on the very day at Everton that the manager was bleating about it.”