Reported speech in the past

[giovanni]

What tense would be for the following:

He arrived late for our party. He_______(say) that he
_______(has) a very good excuse. When I asked him why he was late........................

Thanks

giovanni

[Pamela]

He said that he had had a very good excuse. . That is my personal opinion

[Yankee]

In my opinion, that may be one had too many, Pamela.

1. (This is the most likely version, in my opinion)

His direct speech:
"I have a good excuse for being late."

The reported speech:
He said he had a good excuse for being late.

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2. (This is less likely)

His direct speech:
"I had a good excuse for being late."

The reported speech:
He said he had had a good excuse for being late.

However, no matter which of the two "direct speech" sentences was used, I think a native speaker would simply use had in the reported speech.

Amy

[Alan]

Hi Giovanni,

One way of choosing the suitable tense is to follow the way things happened:

[Pamela]

Aha, I expected that you would correct me.(that’s why I wrote “my personal opinion”) Initially I wrote had a good excuse but then changed my mind (Russian grammar doesn’t differ much from English),so in Russian sounds better had had.
He says: I had a good excuse for my being late