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O'NEILL WANTS TUESDAY TIES
O'Neill - wants schedule tweaked.
Aston Villa manager Martin O'Neill is keen to see the second game of an international break played on a Tuesday rather than a Wednesday.
O'Neill's squad is not the most heavily affected in the Premier League, but Villa do suffer the loss of key players such as John Carew, Gareth Barry and Stiliyan Petrov during the international break.
He told the club's official website: "The players on international duty don't have the break that the non-internationals do and they have to come back at very late hours.
"For instance, Stiliyan Petrov plays the second game of his international week on Wednesday night in Georgia.
"He then has to travel back because we play Portsmouth on Saturday. Those are the obvious concerns of a club manager but I wouldn't be alone in that."
Indeed, the Villa manager feels that in order to address this problem, FiIFA should look at ways of giving the affected players more time to recover ahead of their domestic fixtures.
"There's talk - and I think it is a good idea - of playing the second game on a Tuesday. I don't think many people would disagree with that because it gives you the extra day," added O'Neill.
"That would give players the extra time to get home from fairly lengthy distances away.
"It would give them added preparation time and I think everyone would be happy."
