Euro 2008 Qualifying News:Andy O'Brien was last night called into the Ireland squad for the European Championship qualifiers against Germany and Cyprus at Croke Park. The Bolton defender, who continued his run of first-team football by playing 90 minutes in the narrow defeat to Chelsea, comes in as cover for John O'Shea, who is considered a doubt for both games after aggravating a thigh strain on Saturday.
The Waterfordman lasted just 30 minutes of Manchester United's 4-0 defeat of Wigan before limping out of the match. He is, for the moment, still in the Ireland squad, but will undergo tests before a decision is made on his ability to travel.
The loss of O'Shea would be a blow to Ireland manager Steve Staunton, who remains short of central defensive options even after calling up O'Brien. Darren O'Dea did not feature yesterday for Celtic, though Aiden McGeady did help set up a last-gasp winner against Gretna.
Despite some problems in that one department for the Germany game - Paul McShane will be back from suspension to face the Cypriots on Wednesday week - Staunton will have been content after Sunday's English and Scottish games during which the majority of his first-choice players fared well.
Robbie Keane turned in what was probably the Irish performance of the league programme, scoring twice at Anfield to earn Tottenham a point against Liverpool. Shay Given played in Newcastle's win over Everton and Richard Dunne led Manchester City to another impressive victory.
Kevin Doyle, meanwhile, scored his first club goal of the season as Reading beat Derby 1-0 at home.
"It's nice to get off the mark in the Premier League - the first one's always the hardest, and hopefully I can go on a run now," said the striker. "Last week (the 7-4 defeat by Portsmouth) was a freak game, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry after it, so to win with a clean sheet is great."
Among other positives for Staunton were strong displays by the likes of Stephen Ireland, Joey O'Brien and Steve Finnan.
Steve Carr, however, failed to make even the bench for Newcastle and now seems unlikely to be involved in the European games because of a hamstring problem, while Birmingham City goalkeeper Colin Doyle continues to pay for early-season mistakes, with the Corkman left in the stands again for yesterday's game at Blackburn.
German coach Joachim Loew has included Werder Bremen trio Torsten Frings, Tim Borowski and Clemens Fritz, all of whom have just returned from injury, in his squad for the trip to Dublin.
The visitors will be without Michael Ballack, Philipp Lahm and Miroslav Klose for the games.
Cork City travel to Belfield this evening looking to maintain the run of league form that has put a second-place finish within their grasp.
The visitors will still be without Darragh Ryan due to a pelvic injury, but if John O'Flynn recovers from the dead leg picked up against Shamrock Rovers then Damien Richardson would have the same squad available to him again.
Pete Mahon is expected to make changes to the side that came from behind to draw with Bray on Friday night. The manager feels some players looked tired and says: "We'll begin with a few who haven't had as much of a chance in the first team".
GERMANY SQUAD: Hildebrand (Valencia), Lehmann (Arsenal); Castro (Bayer Leverkusen), A Friedrich (Hertha Berlin), M Friedrich (Bayer Leverkusen), Fritz (Werder Bremen), Jansen (Bayern Munich), Mertesacker (Werder Bremen), Metzelder (Real Madrid); Borowski (Werder Bremen), Frings (Werder Bremen), Hilbert (Stuttgart), Odonkor (Real Betis), Rolfes (Bayer Leverkusen), Schneider (Bayer Leverkusen), Schweinsteiger (Bayern Munich), Trochowski (Hamburg); Gomez (Stuttgart), Helmes (Cologne), Kiessling (Bayer Leverkusen), Kuranyi (Schalke), Podolski (Bayern Munich).
