I’m spoilt for choice, insists confident Trapattoni

You might be tempted to call it accentuating the positive or seeing the glass half-full or even just standard managerial spin but, for a man deemed to be facing a make or break brace of games, there’s no getting away from the fact Giovanni Trapattoni is radiating confidence and good vibes in the run-up to Ireland’s World Cup qualifiers away to Sweden on Friday and at home to Austria the following Tuesday.

So much so that, even though he will have to do without first-choice personnel like Richard Dunne and Aiden McGeady — as well as Anthony Pilkington who would probably have gone straight into the starting 11 in Stockholm — Trapattoni insists he is still left with one of the happier selection headaches of his time as Ireland manager.

“At last, we have four players in every position,” he enthused after training in Malahide yesterday.