O'Neill Wants Less International Friendlies

Every Premiership boss is in the same position when it comes to losing players for internationals. But Martin O'Neill ...

.... says Sunderland’s match preparations will not be helped by the loss of so many of the first-team squad to international duty this week.

And he wants to see games like to tonight's friendly fixture between England and Brazil scrapped.

The Black Cats – who face Arsenal at home on Saturday – have 11 players away representing their countries, but O'Neill says his players are at risk of injury because of needless friendly fixtures.

Training at Sunderland will obviously be with just a handful of players this week. Not ideal with such a massive game on Saturday.

Martin O'Neill: “It is difficult.

“It’s far from ideal for us, and I’ve welcomed talk of not holding so many friendly internationals during the course of subsequent seasons."

Source: Sunderland-Mad