Fresh spring in James McCarthy’s step following move to Everton

After years of moaning about both the transfer window closing two weeks after the season starts and the endless interruptions caused by international games, there must have been a few club coaches in Britain who enjoyed Monday’s collision between the two.

In Malahide, however, the Irish were trying to get down to business after a long day in which one player got the move he wanted and another the sense that he might not be wanted by his current club at all.

James McCarthy and Shane Long were training away with the rest of the squad yesterday morning and the general consensus was that there is a spring in the now Everton midfielder's step since he landed in, fresh from his late night signing.

For Long, deadline day was an altogether less satisfying affair with a club he has generally done well for showing a surprise willingness to let him go before their moves to replace him fell through.

His team-mates suggested he had coped well with the sudden bout of uncertainty but Marco Tardelli, reckons, perhaps hopes, that the 26- year-old might feel this Friday that he has something of a point to prove.

My opinion
"I don't think so," said the Italian when asked yesterday if he is worried that the proposed move to Hull might adversely affect him.

“Shane is a good professional player and it is an opportunity to show his coach and the other coach that somebody is wrong . . . that is my opinion.

“If the West Brom coach wanted him to go to Hull then it’s an opportunity for Shane to show him.”

Simon Cox still seems a little bemused by the incident in which Long appears to have been left hanging at Hull while West Brom tried to establish whether they had successfully replaced him.

"It's funny," he says, "it's one of those thing of those things that only came up on the day and we weren't aware of it until the day when we sitting there watching Deadline Day on TV . . ..you hear the breaking news and then suddenly you realise that he's not in the hotel anymore.

Sell him
"I don't think West Brom really wanted to sell him," he insists however, "and I don't think Shane wanted to leave but the club has accepted a bid and he has done what any player would do, which is get on a plane to the club who have put in the bid.

“I think he’s focused enough now to concentrate on what we have to do here over the next few days rather than worrying about something that only came up in the first place on deadline day. It’s an exciting few days for us all.”

The Nottingham Forest striker's ankle problem is one of several injury problems still hanging over the squad as preparations continue for Friday's critically important World Cup qualifier against Sweden. Cox insists he is available for selection, though, and Tardelli says David Forde and Marc Wilson should be too with the latter apparently hoping to resume training today after resting his bruised foot.

Tardelli, though, was quick, too quick perhaps, to rattle off the range of options available to Giovanni Trapattoni in the event the player doesn't make it and seemed to suggest that Ciaran Clark is seen as topping the list.