Martin O'Neill says he continues to be "delighted," to have Roy Keane as his assistant manager and that he has no problem with the Cork man expressing his opinion on matters relating to the team as long as it is not "absolutely contradictory" to what he has himself said on particular issues.

“I chose to bring him in in the first place,” he said at yesterday’s pre-match press conference, “and he’s been terrific around the lads, all that I wanted him to be. He’s got a mind of his own and unless what he’s said is absolutely contradictory to what I’m saying that I don’t have a problem.”

Characterisation

O’Neill said that he had not seen the reports of what Keane had said in his press conference but later suggested that he would read through the comments after it was put to him that Everton chairman

Bill Kenwright

had said the former Manchester United midfielder had said some “stupid things,” and that manager

Roberto Martinez

would be “shocked” by his characterisation of the club’s behaviour in relation to

Seamus Coleman

and

James McCarthy

.

Keane’s comments had actually seemed entirely reasonable and appeared to shed some light on the sort of tensions that inevitably exist between club and international set ups, which is something he acknowledged.

But the suggestion that Everton tended to exaggerate the seriousness of their players’ fitness issues and that talks between O’Neill and Martinez might be required at some stage did go further than the Ireland manager has said on the matter.

Previously O’Neill had hinted that he had his doubts when he said that he had to give Everton “the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise” but yesterday he said that he accepted what he had been told by the Merseyside club in relation to both players.

“To anyone else you might think there is something a bit strange about it,” he said, “[but] I have my own view on it and that is what I am telling you.”

The manager declined to comment on whether he found Keane’s comments on Jack Grealish’s availability and the role of the player’s father in the decision making process unhelpful or on Robbie Keane’s suggestion after Friday’s game that the tactics employed did not suit his style of play.

Less jovial

Roy Keane had observed that the 19-year-old Aston Villa winger’s father appeared to be playing a part in his son’s decision and then added, quite possibly a little humorously: “We could be waiting a bloody long while, knowing his Dad.”

O’Neill, who was rather less jovial himself yesterday than tends to be the case in these situations, seemed, predictably perhaps, a little put out to be having a succession of his assistant’s quotes put to him for comment at a pre-match press conference.

If there had been a sense on Sunday that Roy Keane might not be doing very much press in future after the way his conference had ended, O’Neill’s demeanour yesterday seemed to suggest he wouldn’t exactly be itching over the Christmas to get back behind a microphone laden top table either.

John O’Shea, meanwhile, said that like the manager the players are pleased to have his former Manchester United team-mate involved with the set up. “It’s brilliant having him on board,” he said. The supposed distraction of it all, he said, “doesn’t bother us a bit”.