Lee Carsley has emerged as the top priority casualty in the Republic of Ireland camp for next Saturday's European Championship meeting with Macedonia in Skopje's City Stadium.

Within hours of the players assembling for the first scheduled training session at Clonshaugh yesterday, the Blackburn midfielder had been identified as the prime fitness worry for Ireland's most important European assignment to date.

Implied in that development was an admission that earlier worries about Robbie Keane had been overstated and that the Coventry striker is now certain to be available for selection.

Mick McCarthy, it seems, is far less satisfied about Carsley's state of health. The Blackburn player took a foot injury into the meeting with QPR on Saturday and then had the misfortune to aggravate it, during the course of the game.

His foot was apparently extensively bruised on Sunday and the Ireland manager confirmed yesterday the player is now unlikely to train before the squad travels to Skopje on Thursday morning.

"Lee's fitness is a concern at this point and we'll just have to wait and see how his injury progresses," he said. "His foot is quite swollen and we'll first have to wait for that to improve before assessing his chances of playing."

Carsley, who has deputised for Roy Keane as the midfield anchor in three of the last four European games, has become an important member of the squad, strong in the tackle and abrasive enough to make a plausible replacement for Keane in protecting the back four.

To that extent, his fight for fitness will be monitored carefully by the management team over the next couple of days and McCarthy, one suspects, is sufficiently perturbed by the prospect of having to go to battle without him, that he may be prepared to wait as long as possible to facilitate his recovery.

Inevitably, the name of the retired Andy Townsend was raised and dismissed by the manager as a possible replacement. Townsend announced he had finished with international football after the World Cup play-off against Belgium in Brussels almost two years ago and at varying intervals since, his name has surfaced in times of crisis.

This latest speculation fits that trend and appeared to be treated as such by McCarthy. "I'm very happy that Andy has said that he's prepared to help us out - I would expect no less from a player who has given so much service to Ireland.

"When situations like this arise, I don't discount anybody but it's all a bit unlikely. For one thing, he has a hamstring problem. And if I were to bring him in at this stage over selected members of the squad, it would give off the wrong messages.

"People would be entitled to ask why have a squad at all, if I was prepared to do that. I know what players are available to me if I need to replace Lee Carsley but hopefully that situation will not arise".

Alan McLoughlin, the most experienced of the midfield alternatives, did an excellent job when deployed in a 4-5-1 formation in Yugoslavia last year. But now, in the revised priorities of Saturday's game and the assumption that McCarthy will go with two specialist forwards, his prospects of a place in the starting line-up, may not be all that bright.

Jeff Kenna has played in a holding role for Ireland in the past: Gary Kelly is another possibility and among those on standby with the necessary club, if not international experience in the role, is Derby County's Rory Delap.

At this point, however, McCarthy is unlikely to be looking beyond Carsley, trusting in the players recuperative powers and the skills of his technical team, to enable the combative Blackburn player to take his place as planned.

Robbie Keane did not train yesterday but depending on his rate of progress from an ankle problem, he may do so today. Before travelling to Dublin to link up with the squad, the Coventry player was treated by the club's medical personnel who considered there was no need to detain him at Highfield Road.

McCarthy said yesterday he fully understood Gordon Strachan's reasoning in insisting the player remained in Coventry over the weekend, rather than travel to Dublin as planned.

"I had no difficulties whatever with that," he said. "Gordon Strachan was concerned with the extent of the player's injury and if there was a real problem, I was happy to have the player examined by the club's medical people."

It means that the Coventry player is now almost certain to join Niall Quinn up front next Saturday but as yet, the composition of McCarthy's midfield formation is still far from clear.

To qualify automatically as winners of Group Eight Ireland need to win in Skopje and then hope that football skills and much else, will enable Croatia to turn home advantage to account in their meeting with Yugoslavia at Zagreb on the same evening.

Macedonia will miss six players for their European qualifyer against Ireland on Saturday but coach Dragan Kanatloravski said he expected the replacements to make life difficult for Mick McCarthy's outfit.

"We will play for national pride. We want to beat Ireland but we would also be happy with a draw," Kanatlarovski said.

Macedonia will be without foreign-based central defenders Mitko Stojkovski and Igor Nikolovski, influential midfielders Milan Stojanovski and Viktor Trenevski as well as first choice goalkeeper Oka Nikolov, all through injury.