REP. OF IRELAND v CROATIA:Venue: Aviva Stadium Kick-off: 7.45pm On TV: Sky Sports 3, highlights RTE 2, 10.0pm
HAVING PULLED out of tonight’s game against Croatia, Kevin Doyle will have a scan on his knee back in England today after returning to his club in the wake of a recurrence on the training ground of the injury that prematurely ended his last Premier League campaign with Wolves.
The striker is said to be unsure of how serious the problem is and hasn’t ruled out the possibility he might be fit to play for Wolves against Blackburn on Sunday.
While he reckons he is “50-50” for that game, however, he also fears the problem, which originally dates back to Ireland’s home win over Macedonia, could sideline him for a matter of weeks.
That’s something Giovanni Trapattoni was keenly aware of, he said, when he advised the striker to play it safe and skip this evening’s friendly at the Aviva Stadium. “Kevin had been recovering well,” said the manager, “but every day in his situation should involve progress and this morning it was clear that he wasn’t 100 per cent. It was best that he went back to his club, we can decide whether he is fit to play for us (against Slovakia and Russia next month) on another day.”
Asked if he felt the 27 year-old is likely to have recovered by the time those key qualifying games come around at the start of September, Trapattoni said only that he hopes so, “but they are only 20 days away”.
Séamus Coleman, meanwhile, looks certain to miss those games after Everton confirmed last night the injury he sustained last weekend involves torn ankle ligaments. The 22-year-old, who would have missed his club’s two opening games of the new season anyway due to suspension, will visit a specialist in London later this week in order to have a more detailed assessment of the problem but while the club says it is too soon to be sure of how long it will take him to recuperate, it is hugely improbable he would recover from such an injury in such a short time.
Coleman had never been likely to start this evening, though, and in the absence of Doyle, Trapattoni has opted to partner his captain, Robbie Keane, with Shane Long, whose move to West Brom on a four-year deal worth more than €30,000 plus bonuses a week was wrapped up yesterday.
Keane was upbeat about the choice, suggesting Long would be “buzzing,” after getting the sort of move “ he deserves” in light of his performances for Reading last year.
Elsewhere, the Italian has gone for his strongest possible side too, with Shay Given returning in goal, Damien Duff starting on the right and Richard Dunne back in central defence alongside Séan St Ledger.
Stephen Ward is one of the slightly peripheral players to survive from the win over Italy at the end of last season as the Dubliner gets another chance to audition for the left back role. “I’m under no illusions about just coming into any squad and playing,” he says. “Kevin (Kilbane) has been fantastic during the many years he has played and you cannot buy experience in these type of games.
“I just want to do as well as I can and make sure the manager knows that I am an option. If I can do that then hopefully (in the longer term) I can stake my claim in that position. As long as I’m in the squad again and get my chance to push my claim again then that’s good enough for me.”
With just two senior central midfielders available to him in the wake of so many withdrawals, Trapattoni yesterday called up highly-rated young Chelsea midfielder Conor Clifford to the senior squad and didn’t entirely rule out the idea the Dubliner might play some small part in the game.
The Italian again took time, meanwhile, to hail the way in which those players who have had to pull out of this game handled themselves in relation to what he sees as their responsibilities towards him and the FAI over the past few days.
Tony Pulis saw things rather differently yesterday, however, with the Stoke City boss adamant that two of his players, Jonathan Walters and Marc Wilson, should not have been obliged to travel to Dublin in order to have their injuries assessed by the association’s medical staff.
“Our medical people say flying over to Ireland and back, plus staying in a hotel for the night, won’t have done them any good,” he said. “It makes it a longer and more difficult process for us to get the players fit for Sunday.
“They are only friendly games and we are paying their wages. Our supporters want them to be fit for Sunday. The Irish supporters are not paying for them in a game that’s a meaningless fixture. To take them away from their professional clubs a week before the season starts cannot be right.”
If Glenn Whelan picks up a knock tonight, Trapattoni might just be avoiding a few calls over the next day or two.
IRELAND:Given (Aston Villa); Kelly (Fulham), Dunne (Aston Villa), St Ledger (Leicester), Ward (Wolves); Duff (Fulham), Whelan (Stoke), Gibson (Man United), Hunt (Wolves); Keane (Tottenham), Long (West Brom).
CROATIA(probable): Pletikosa (Tottenham); Srna (Shakhtar Donetsk), Corluka (Tottenham), Simunic (Hoffenheim), Strinic (Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk); Mandzukic (Wolfsburg), Vukojevic (Dynamo Kyiv), Modric (Tottenham), Kranjcar (Tottenham); Eduardo (Shakhtar Donetsk), Olic (Bayern Munich).
