St Ledger escapes surgery but O’Shea adds to Trap woes

There was mixed injury news in defence for GiovanniTrapattoni yesterday as it was confirmed that long-termabsentee Sean St Ledger will not now need surgery to a troublesome hamstring problem, but a strain in the same area looks likely to keep John O’Shea out of Ireland’s February friendly with Poland.

St Ledger has missedIreland’s last three games and hasn’t played at all since Oct 6 when he incurred the injury in his Leicester City team’s 2-0 home win over Bristol Rovers. The issue prompted a trip to the specialist doctor Hans-Wilhelm Muller-Wohlfahrt, whose work has attracted patients such as the Bayern Munich squad and Bono. The German decided 27-year-old St Ledger will not need surgery.

Leicester City assistant manager Craig Shakespeare said the visit to Germany went fine. “The difficulty when players have a long-term injury is they want to runbefore they can walk. With Sean, he did that last time and we have to pull the reins a bit.

“But he is progressing nicely and he has travelled with the boys to give them his support. It is good to have him around, but it will be nice to have him back on the training pitch. He didn’t need surgery, which is a relief, and we will assess him on a week to week basis and see how he progresses.”

Leicester, however, werereluctant to put any date on a comeback and it is much the same at Sunderland.

O’Shea limped off after 68 minutes of his team’s 2-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday, in which he also scored his first Premier League goal for over three years. Although Sunderland don’t yet know how long he will be out for the trip to Liverpool, there is an expectation around the camp that it will mean a lay-off of between three and six weeks but he will know more following a scan today.

As manager Martin O’Neill said yesterday: “John could be out for some time and that’s a blow”. The worst-case scenario is that would O’Shea miss Ireland’s so-called “reunion match” with Poland, which is set to take place at the Aviva Stadium on Feb 6.

Given Richard Dunne’s ongoing fitness struggles with Aston Villa, Irish manager Giovanni Trapattoni would have to further experiment in an area of his squad that has become increasingly troublesome. Since the last game of Euro 2012 against Italy, injuries have meant Ireland starting fourdifferent central defensive partnerships in six games.

O’Shea has paired up with both Darren O’Dea andCiaran Clark, while returning to right-back when O’Dea partnered Sean St Ledger for the 2-1 win over Kazakhstan. Stephen Kelly also movedinside for the friendly against Oman.