Damien Duff is winning his bid to be fit for the Republic of Ireland's Euro 2004 qualifier at home to Georgia on Wednesday, despite not being able to train with the squad today.
The Blackburn Rovers winger limped out of Saturday's victory over Albania at Lansdowne Road with a knee injury which put his place in the team to face the Georgians in doubt.
Duff's knee has improved since yesterday and if he continues to make progress he will have a chance of making the Group 10 qualifier.
Chris Hughton, Ireland's assistant manager, said: "All we are looking for is an improvement from day to day and he has improved since yesterday. He is quite bright in himself and we need to keep monitoring it, but he is making progress.
"We shall look at it again tomorrow but certainly there has been an improvement. I won't talk about his chances in terms of percentages because that kind of thing comes back to hit you in the face, but we hope the improvement continues through to Wednesday evening.
"Damien didn't train today and the ideal scenario is that you would want him to do some type of training before the game, whether it be light or something more, but this is one we have got to gauge as time goes on."
Having successfully completed the first half of the double header by beating Albania 2-1, Hughton said the management team had been impressing upon the players how difficult it would be to follow up with a win against Georgia who are bottom of the table.
"First and foremost, the thing you have to drive home to the players is the difficulty of the game," said Hughton.
"When we played the two away games in Georgia and Albania, my perception was that Georgia were the better of the two teams.
"They have a lot of quality in the side and if we look at their players who play worldwide, then they are playing at a higher level than a lot of the Albanian players, which is testament to the quality of their side.
"On any given day, if we weren't to do our job right, then they could gain in confidence and be a very efficient outfit."
The Georgians appear to offer a sterner test than the Albanians. Their squad includes defender Kakhi Kaladze who played in the Champions League final for AC Milan and got a winner's medal, plus Rangers striker Shota Arveladze and Dundee defender Zurab Khizanishvili.
"We have to determine what the Georgian side will be because they have made changes over the last three games," said Hughton.
"We have an idea of which way they go and it is up to us over the next couple of days to determine what tactics we shall employ and get them over to the players.
"It is about trying to peak at the right time, but as always the togetherness and team spirit is there and that is a big part of the Irish game."