Northern Ireland manager Michael O'Neill has said that he would have preferred Gareth Bale to be playing for Wales when the two sides meet at the Cardiff City Stadium on Thursday.

Bale was left out of Chris Coleman's squad having only just returned from a calf problem, while Arsenal's Aaron Ramsey is also absent through injury for the Euro 2016 warm-up games.

O'Neill is preparing his side for a first major international tournament in 20 years, and he was keen to have them play against some of the world's best players in advance.

"We know that when we go to France we're going to play against some very good teams and teams with some exceptional individual players which Gareth Bale is - Aaron Ramsey comes into that category too," O'Neill told reporters.

"It would have been good for our preparations to have to deal with that but equally the fact they are not playing sets us a different challenge. It's been difficult to give the players as much meaningful information as possible because of their absence.

"When you look at Wales over the qualifying campaign, you see how influential Gareth Bale was in terms of his number of goals and assists. Finding footage of Wales without Gareth Bale is quite difficult. We think we've given the best information we can. It would be great if he had have been able to play. Chris [Coleman] is like me, he probably knows the vast majority of his squad that are going to go to the tournament, I'm sure the players that come in will want to stake their claim for an opportunity in the summer as well."

Northern Ireland, who have been drawn alongside Germany, Poland and Ukraine in the Euro 2016 group stages, take on Slovenia in Belfast on Monday in the second of their Easter fixtures.