Bournemouth manager Gary O'Neil appeared to take a thinly-veiled swipe at Wales duo Kieffer Moore and Chris Mepham as he axed them from the Cherries squad.
Moore and Mepham were among a number of Bournemouth players who were called up for duty to the most recent international break. Indeed, Moore scored the winner for Wales against Latvia at Cardiff City Stadium last week.
Both have played important roles for Bournemouth this season, with Moore the club's third top-scorer with four goals this term and Mepham having turned out 21 times in the Premier League so far in this campaign.
However, in relegation-threatened Bournemouth's two games since the international break, neither Welshman has been included in their matchday squads.
The Cherries reported a fully-fit squad ahead of both games, but only five fit players - Moore, Mepham, Jordan Zemura, Darren Randolph and Jack Stacey - have been left out of both squads.
Crucially, every other Bournemouth player who left on international duty has been named in the last two squads by O'Neil, making his comments ahead of the Brighton defeat seemingly even more pointed towards Moore and Mepham.
“You have a choice as a footballer whether you stay with the group or whether you decide that your own agenda is what you want to do and is more important,” said O’Neill.
“You have a choice as a footballer for how you want to handle things. We have a huge squad full of senior players at this moment, everyone’s fit, so we are going to have to disappoint some. I’m pretty sure it won’t be the same ones all the time.”
Both players, of course, remain crucial to Wales' cause and Rob Page will doubtless want this situation to be resolved, needing his players to be getting minutes at club level amid an intense Euro 2024 qualifying campaign.
Moore has scored eight goals in 27 games for Bournemouth since moving from Cardiff City last January, while only five players have played more minutes for the Cherries than Mepham so far this campaign.
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