GARY O’Neil believes it will be “interesting to see” how teams with more players returning from the World Cup will fare, believing there to be pros and cons to having players missing during the break. Chelsea had 12 players away at the World Cup, including England trio Mason Mount, Raheem Sterling, and Conor Gallagher, whilst Moroccan Hakim Ziyech and Croatian Mateo Kovacic have been ruled out of the game with Cherries, owing to the fact they returned late as their countries reached the third/fourth-place play-off. The only Cherries to be selected for the World Cup were Wales duo Kieffer Moore and Chris Mepham, allowing O’Neil the opportunity to work with the vast majority of his squad during the break. However, the former England under-21 international was quick to point out that competitive football over the past six weeks had been hard to come by, with those in Qatar potentially remaining in better condition than those who stayed at home. Asked if that would make a difference in the fixture,
Gary O’Neil said: “I’m not sure. I think there’s a couple of ways of looking at it. I think the boys that have been at the World Cup will still have rhythm, that they’re used to playing through November and December, and they come back in now having been playing competitive football, whereas the boys that have been here have had to go through sort of a mid-season pre-season, basically. So, yeah, it’d be interesting to see who is sharper, the boys that have been at the World Cup and have kept going, or the ones that have had a little break, and then I’ve had to do training to keep up to speed. Obviously the more players that you have at the World Cup, shows that you have good players. So, yes, I mean, regardless of who’s in better condition, it will still be a tough game for us.
Moore and Mepham’s World Cups ended in relative disappointment as Cymru pulled no trees in Group B, exiting after three games. Asked if the pair would use the disappointment to spur themselves on at club level,
Gary O’Neil responded: “Yeah, I think they’re keen to get going. I thought they both did well the other night. Kieffer was excellent in his work rate and still managed to cause Newcastle some problems. Meps had suffered with the virus and he was one of the real late calls we had to make, and to get through the game the way he did, I thought he did really well considering the World Cup, on top of the illness. He hadn’t had too much work put into him before. So yeah, I was pleased he came through okay and did well and they’ll both be better for another week’s work before the Chelsea game.”
