Trap plays it safe in Pyrenees

A FTER all the talk about what makes tonight’s game here in Andorra so different — the pitch, the stadium, the altitude, the lowly but robust opposition — wouldn’t you just know that when it comes to the crunch, it’s the same as ever it was from Giovanni Trapattoni.

The Ireland manager began his pre-match press conference yesterday with the words, “We start the team as usual”, meaning that, but for the enforced absence of Richard Dunne, his line-up tonight has a thoroughly familiar look to it.

The sight earlier this week of Keith Fahey in a midfield role on the training pitch had led some in the media to predict that the Birmingham man would be a selection surprise ahead of Glenn Whelan. But no, Whelan starts alongside Keith Andrews in the middle as ever, with Trapattoni even suggesting that the Stoke man had been a tad hurt by all the media speculation suggesting he might have to sit this one out.