Steve Bone

Anyway, sorry, going off a tangent, no reason why you shouldn't be manager of a club and a country, but if you then, if other clubs who are around the club that you're managing are then starting to look at how you're using their players in games where they maybe don't think they should be used, then you've got an issue.

As John Massino said when he was asked about it,

the fact that somebody's asking me about it means there is an issue.

It means we need to have a look at it.

I don't think there's been any suggestion that Michael O'Neill has broken any rules or anything like that or there's been no question of his integrity but if you are the manager of Oxford and you're seeing your players

used by, to all intents and purposes, by the manager of Blackburn, when you perhaps don't want them to be used, you want to make sure they're 100% fit for your last six or seven games, then you can see why people are starting to question it and look at whether the rules should be changed.

Because I think the suggestion has been that there have been some...

Some players who are sort of up against Blackburn in the relegation battle who have been playing for Northern Ireland and there have been others who have been released from the squad or who haven't been selected.

who are sort of on the other side of the fence in terms of those clubs who are battling to stay up.

So, you know, it might be people putting two and two together and coming up with seven.

But there could be something to it, couldn't there?

It'd be interesting to see.

I don't think Michael O'Neill has said anything about it.

He must have been asked about it, but I haven't seen what he's had to say.

I'm sure he'll defend himself when he's asked about it.

but yeah I mean from Pompey's point of view it seems that Terry Devlin you know for all the sort of exertion he might have had with Northern Ireland he's come back fit I think so that's something and it can work both ways can't it because a player that's gone away and had a couple of games for his country might come back with an extra spring in his step might be sort of have his confidence lifted by that it was Devlin's you know he's quite inexperienced in terms of being an international but

So hopefully we'll have given him a lift at a time when his form hasn't been at its best, has it?

Had a couple of poorer games for us, I thought, before the break.

So, you know, these things can work in different ways.

But it'll be interesting to see if the league and the FA come back and say they're going to look into it or are going to do anything about it.