Keane: I’ll do everything I can to make play-offs

ROBBIE KEANE has rated his chances of featuring in next month’s European Championship play-offs as “touch and go”.

The Irish captain sat out last night’s 2-1 win over Armenia with an abductor muscle injury and saw a specialist on Monday which he hopes will speed up the recovery. However, the LA Galaxy striker admitted that he was still somewhat in the dark.

“I’ll go back to the club and see. It’s a four to six-week injury and it will be touch and go so we’ll see. I’ll have to see. I’ve to get a scan and then hopefully it settles down and isn’t as bad as it was when I got the scan done immediately.

“The next day, after the game, there was a lot of bleeding. Of course I’ll do everything I can to get back to the play-offs.

“I don’t like watching games, it’s nerve wracking, but the lads did great to get the win and we’ll look forward to the play-offs.”

They will look backwards too. The memory of Thierry Henry and Paris may still be hard to bear but Glenn Whelan is hoping that the desire to make up for what was taken away from them in the Stade de France will stand to Ireland in the weeks to come.

“Hopefully,” said the Stoke City midfielder last night. “I never want to experience that feeling again. It was gut-wrenching. It took a while to get over. I think the lads beforehand, we talked about it and we said these things can happen again but we want to qualify.

“We’ll hold that in our heads and hopefully do a job and qualify.”

With the possibility of no Keane for one or both legs and the certainty of no Kevin Doyle for the first, Giovanni Trapattoni will watch the intervening rounds of club action with even greater concern than usual but the players believe the strength in depth is there to prosper.

“Yeah it does make it difficult,” said Whelan, “but there were raised eyebrows about Simon (Cox) — why should he be playing — and obviously Longy was unfortunate.

“But then again Jon Walters has come on again and done a great job.

” It gives the manager a headache and I’m sure that’s what he wanted.

“But no matter who comes on there are eleven lads itching to get into the team and possibly another eleven or 12 all trying to get into the team as well. It’s good for the team and it’s good for morale.”

They approach the two-legged do-or-die having seen their cherished record of clean sheets spoiled by the Armenians.

“But one goal conceded in over 800 minutes of international football is still a proud record with which to move onwards and, hopefully, upwards.

“Shay was a bit disappointed,” said Stephen Kelly. “I think he saw it late.

“We had a fantastic run going and it would have been great to keep it going into the play-offs but our confidence is still there.

“We’re unbeaten for such a long time now. Anyone that gets us is going to be wary of us.”