O'Neill has a mixed dressing room to deal with at Aston Villa

Nov 23 2007 By Bill Howell, Birmingham Mail

VILLA manager Martin O'Neill admits he will today inherit a mixed bag of emotions in his dressing room following the international break.

Scott Carson and Gareth Barry's moods will be far from good after their exertions with England, John Carew's Norway were also ousted from Euro 2008 despite a win in Malta and Shaun Maloney's Scotland were knocked out by Italy.

Furthermore, Stiliyan Petrov's Bulgaria and Martin Laursen's Denmark were already out of next summer's finals.

"A lot of the players have been away on international matches. You cannot look after them at all, they are in the hands of somebody else. All you can try and do is look after your own that were left here," said O'Neill.

"Shaun Maloney came back and trained on Monday after Scotland had finished their qualifying programme.

"He was obviously disappointed. Players in this particular week will come back either absolutely elated about something, like perhaps Sweden and Olof Mellberg, or as in the case of Scotland and Shaun, disappointed.

"I actually watched Martin Laursen play against Northern Ireland on the TV, and we will just have had to wait until everybody comes back."