Photo-finish on the cards
Ireland’s manager will be at Upton Park today to watch those of his charges who are involved in West Ham’s game against Stoke. But the Italian will be just as concerned about those he won’t see in action, all the other members of his squad who have to emerge intact from one more 90-minute challenge before they can begin reporting into Dublin for international duty tomorrow evening.
With Aiden McGeady and Sean St Ledger among those already out of the running, Trapattoni won’t want to lose any more first-choice players with less than a week to go to the big World Cup qualifiers against Sweden and Austria. There may be more promise around the fringes of the current squad than for quite some time but, as ever, our national team isn’t so flush with world-beating talent that it can afford to lose two or three automatic starters without their absence having a measurable impact on overall performance.
