Soccer:A decision on Liam Lawrence's fitness will be taken shortly before kick-off in Zilina tomorrow as the Ireland winger emerged as Giovanni Trapattoni's latest injury concern ahead of the clash with Slovakia.
Lawrence dislocated a finger during the 3-2 defeat to Russia last Friday but it is a thigh strain suffered in training that is placing a question mark over his availability. Should the Portsmouth midfielder fail to recover, Birmingham’s Keith Fahey is in line to start.
As expected, Reading striker Shane Long has been named alongside Robbie Keane in place of the injured Kevin Doyle as Ireland attempt to bounce back from the body-blow suffered at the Aviva Stadium.
Trapattoni, who has borne much of the brunt for his reluctance to change personnel or tactics during that defeat, has resisted the temptation to make any further changes with Paul Green keeping his place in the centre of midfield alongside Glenn Whelan. And the 71-year-old shrugged off the negative reaction as an inevitable part of his job, urging his players to do the same.
He said: “In 30 years I’ve had many good results and bad results. It is more difficult to analyse things beforehand. If I said I had foreseen the exact situations we ended up in, you wouldn’t believe me.
“My job is predicting. If I change things and we lose, then people would be asking why am I changing everything? It’s normal. The first thing I said to the players (after Friday’s game) was we will watch the game again but for psychological reasons you have to not read the newspapers.
“The players know if they played bad or well. They can’t be in the right frame of mind if they’re reading bad, bad, bad, bad. We cannot lose our trust or our confidence. It’s important because, yes games are 90 minutes, but the first 10 minutes can change the game. Tomorrow is another game, tomorrow we have another opportunity. We cannot cry, we must start again.”
The Italian is confident the Republic will put on a better display tomorrow night now the players who have struggled for Premier League opportunities this season, such as goalkeeper Shay Given, Keane and Glenn Whelan, have a game under their belts.
Trapattoni said: “I couldn’t make changes because before the defeat against Russia, in two years in qualification we lost only one game against France. We have shown many times we are a solid team. Now it’s important we share together positive situations and negative situations.
“Yesterday I saw all the players were sharp. (Before the Russia game) it was different. I think the rhythm will be better. I think Slovakia will be the same. But I think we are heading in a good direction.”
Slovakia will be without star striker Robert Vittek and suspended Liverpool defender Martin Skrtel.
Trapattoni added: “Three months ago I hoped to be on top of the table with these two teams. We cannot forget Slovakia played in the World Cup and beat very strong teams and Russia are a very good team. Now we have to begin again.
“Tomorrow is a meeting of two teams who have both had disappointing results. Psychologically it will be a difficult game but it will be important which team keeps their enthusiasm and confidence.
“We know Slovakia are missing two very important players but we are also missing players and we don’t look for excuses about this.”
Republic of Ireland:Given (Manchester City); O'Shea (Manchester United), Dunne (Aston Villa), St Ledger (Preston North End), Kilbane (Hull City); Lawrence (Portsmouth) or Fahey (Birmingham City), Green (Derby County), Whelan (Stoke City), McGeady (Spartak Moscow); Long (Reading), Keane (Tottenham Hotspur).