Hoolahan’s brief recall

As comebacks go it was brief.

Just hours after he was called up for the Ireland side after an absence of over four years, Wes Hoolahan was ruled out of next week’s friendly against Serbia due to an Achilles injury.

The Norwich playmaker, who won his sole Ireland cap in the 1-0 friendly victory over Colombia at Craven Cottage in May 2008, was surprisingly called up by manager Giovanni Trapattoni after Everton’s Darron Gibson was forced to miss out, having sustained a tear to his left thigh during pre-season training.