Former Players Back To Bite

O’Neill knows Samuel, McCann and Cahill will raise their games but he believes he was right to let them go.

speaking to the Evening Mail, O’Neill explained he had no regrets, particularly about the sale of Gary Cahill as he believes the £5 million recouped was good business.

‘I think players have points to prove every single week, and I think managers have points to prove every single week.

‘Over the years, former players coming back – some players have played very well and some have not done so cleverly on a given day.

‘I just don’t know. Our focus must be on ourselves.’

O’Neill appreciate fans were most concerned about the Cahill deal and it’s the one sale very few still agree with as Cahill has gone on to be quite good for Bolton recently and was even talked about in terms of an England call up the other week.

‘I was asked (at a recent press conference) if I regretted it and said I don’t think you can see that far into the future.

‘The injury was very unfortunate for Curtis, but that is why we took on another centre-half (Zat Knight).

‘That was primarily because I never thought Martin Laursen would play the games – not having done it since his AC Milan days.

‘He has played a full season which is remarkable – and also we had Olof Mellberg playing and he could have switched to centre-half.

‘I was not pushing Gary Cahill out the door – but I can understand him wanting to play first-team football, especially as he was down the pecking order.

‘And once I get a fair price for a player, that is my job, so I am perfectly happy with it. I also think Gary really genuinely wants to play football.’

I can see his point, and I take the point about Laursen however we’ve seen time and time again that Knight sadly was not an improvement on Cahill or Ridgewell, so once Ridge left the sensible option would’ve been to give Cahill the run that Knight had prior to Davies coming in surely?