Donley's international call

FORMER Stoke City boss Michael O'Neill believes his young Northern Ireland team is ready to compete for a place at next summer's World Cup - after naming the Potters' most recent recruit in his squad for next month's opening qualifiers. Jamie Donley, who arrived at the bet365 Stadium from Spurs just before the start of the season, has been used from the bench in Stoke's first two league games as well as starting the Carabao Cup victory over Walsall.

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Now the midfielder has been rewarded for his impressive start to the season with a place in the Northern Ireland squad for games away to Luxembourg on September 4 before playing Germany in Cologne on September 7.

Throughout last year's Nations League campaign and the friendlies played earlier this year, O'Neill's focus has been on getting his players ready for this campaign, in which they will go up against Germany, Slovakia and Luxembourg.

And he is happy with the progress he saw as they won their Nations League group before a series of friendlies in which they beat Iceland, drew with Switzerland and acquitted themselves well in a 2-1 loss to Denmark. The only aberration was a 5-1 hammering in Sweden in March.