New beginnings, same old faces

By the time Giovanni Trapattoni finished reading out his 23-man squad for next month’s World Cup qualifiers against Germany and the Faroe Islands yesterday, 17 of the names had been on duty in Poland during the summer.

Shay Given and Damien Duff have since retired, Darron Gibson is in exile and Stephen Hunt has fallen from favour so, all in all, hardly what you might label a major turnover in personnel after such a traumatising experience.

And yet, Trapattoni was keen to talk about new beginnings yesterday.