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James McCarthy has been named in the Republic of Ireland squad for next month’s World Cup qualifier - despite not being fully fit.

Irish boss Martin O’Neill says he has included the 26-year-old in his 37-man selection because the midfielder is due to start training again this week.

McCarthy has not played for Everton since coming off the bench against Spurs on March 5 yet was still called up to the national team squad to face Wales.

The £13m man injured himself in the warm up prompting a flare up in the club versus country row between the Blues and Ireland.

Koeman accused O’Neill of not protecting McCarthy while the Irish boss reacted angrily, calling the Everton manager the “master tactician of the blame game” in a statement issued the following day.

The pair are potentially on another collision course after O’Neill named McCarthy in his squad for upcoming games with Mexico, Uruguay and the World Cup qualifier with Austria.

“I think this week will decide a lot. We still have time,” O’Neill said.

“If he comes through this week unscathed then it might be something we would look at. I’ve put him in provisionally because, according to Everton, he is starting full-time training this week,” O’Neill told the Irish Examiner.

O’Neill added: “He wanted to play the last time and he declared himself fit and it was really unfortunate that he went out and felt it in the warm-up,” O’Neill explained.

“It’s a different thing between doing some training a couple of days beforehand and thinking that you are okay, and then the intensity of the game, or the build-up to the game as it was, in injuring himself.

"The truth is that the one thing that we have come to accept is that there is no point in bringing somebody who is just half fit. That’s really it.

“If he decides at the end of this week ‘listen, I am absolutely flying, I don’t feel a thing’, that’s a consideration. If he has done four or five days consecutively and he feels nothing and he feels that he is actually doing well, then I have a decision to make.

"But if he is actually thinking ‘I don’t feel great about this’ then, I feel, you know what just leave it for the summer.”