Tardelli’s warning for Dunne
The defender hasn’t played since suffering the injury against his old club Manchester City in February but Villa manager Alex McLeish stated on Wednesday that Ireland’s defensive lynchpin is closing in on a return to action.
Dunne’s importance to the national team has never been greater, as evidenced most by his performance in the 0-0 draw in Moscow last September, but Tardelli claimed Giovanni Trapattoni will not take a gamble by picking a less than fighting fit Dunne in his squad of 23.
“No, definitely not,” said the assistant manager.
Aston Villa have five more Premier League fixtures to fulfil. Four fall prior to May 7 when Trapattoni has said he will name his panel. Yet Tardelli revealed the date is not set in stone given other knocks currently being nursed by Keith Fahey, Stephen Hunt and Stephen Kelly.
“We don’t know at this moment because we have many injured players. I think it’s possible to change some things. It’s possible also to change the date. We want to wait on our players because they deserve to stay with us.
“But we also have the new solution because the young players are playing very well — like [James] McClean, like [James] McCarthy. It’s possible, we think, but I hope that the injured players are fit for Poland.”
Uefa has set May 29 as the deadline for official squad announcements and Trapattoni will sit down with Tardelli some time in the next week to decide when they will go public with their eagerly-awaited list of names.
The plan as it stands is for those players playing in the Championship to report for duty on May 17 — and Dunne may be included in that given his lack of match sharpness — while the Premier League contingent will join them three days later.
Who they will be is the question on everyone’s lips and Tardelli spent a good half-an-hour yesterday batting away questions about individuals believed to be on or just outside the fringes of the squad as he promoted the latest ‘Show Racism the Red Card’ campaign.
At one point, he responded to a question regarding possible strikers by joking that maybe he should just hand a pen and paper to the enquiring journalist but there was a trace of exasperation and a desire to fast-forward to June 10 amid the surface bonhomie.
“Everything is possible,” he said time and again, usually with a knowing smile, but there were still nuggets of information to be gleaned which seemed to reveal a train of thinking and chief among them was that regarding James McCarthy.
The Wigan midfielder’s status as next big thing has been lost to James McClean this last six months but Tardelli has seen both play lately and obviously feels it is the former who is shining more brightly.
“McCarthy we know. We know he’s a good player and now he grows because he’s playing with a bigger personality. I think now he is physically very good, very fit and, whether in the Euros or in the future, he will be a very good player for us.”
And McClean? ” Yes, McClean is a new player for us and he’s played very well all season. But I saw his last two matches and it’s true that sometimes you can play well and not. With young players, they can sometimes play two matches well and one match bad.”
For Seamus Coleman that ratio has swung too far towards the negative after such a bright campaign last year and the Everton player had his ears burned by David Moyes after his foul led to Liverpool’s winner in last week’s FA Cup semi-final.
Tardelli insisted the former Sligo Rovers player was still in their thoughts but the same probably can’t be said for Norwich’s Wes Hoolahan who was ruled out or Noel Hunt who played a leading role in Reading’s successful promotion push from the Championship.
“We have many, many strikers. We have [Simon] Cox, [Jon] Walters, [Kevin] Doyle, [Shane] Long, Robbie Keane, Leon Best. Also Noel Hunt. But we need to decide. We know our players and we have to get it down to 23. We still have to decide.”
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