Key man Hamsik carrying knee injury

SLOVAKIAN playmaker Marek Hamsik has no more than a 50-50 chance of featuring in tonight’s European Championship clash against the Republic of Ireland, according to his manager Vladimir Weiss.

The highly-rated Napoli man, who was linked with both Chelsea and AC Milan before the transfer window closed on Wednesday night, has been struggling with a knee injury which Giovanni Trapattoni said yesterday had required injections.

That came as something of a surprise to Weiss yesterday evening, although he did say earlier this week that Hamsik had informed him as recently as last Sunday that he could hardly walk after scoring against Palermo in a friendly four days before.