McCarthy for Macedonia as Trapattoni clarifies position

FINALLY, some clarity in the James McCarthy affair, with Giovanni Trapattoni confirming that he will include the Wigan man in the squad for next month’s European Championship qualifier against Macedonia and the friendly game against Uruguay.

It might be the case that McCarthy is much more likely to feature in the latter than the former, given that he missed out on Tuesday night’s warmer-upper against Wales, but at least there is now some prospect of a distracting and dispiriting saga finally drawing to a close. It took a lengthy circumnavigation of the subject before the Ireland manager actually nailed his colours to the mast at a lively press conference in Dublin yesterday.

Clearly vexed by repeated questioning about the player, Trapattoni initially left the impression that the Glasgow-born McCarthy would have to move first to break the impasse by unequivocally nailing the green, rather than the blue, colour to his own mast.