Harry Arter: ‘Harry Redknapp let Martin O’Neill know I was Irish... a few months later I got the call’

Since he’s something of an old-school sort, a tenacious midfielder who likes to get his tackles in, it’s probably just as well that Harry Arter isn’t one of the eight Irish players on yellow cards going into Saturday’s World Cup qualifier against Georgia in Tbilisi.

Robbie Brady, Cyrus Christie, Shane Duffy, Aiden McGeady, David Meyler, Jon Walters, Stephen Ward, and Glenn Whelan are all just one more booking away from getting a suspension which would rule them out of next Tuesday’s meeting with Serbia in Dublin. And the risk of that happening to one or more of them would appear to be somewhat above average given that Saturday’s referee, Ivan Kruzliak from Slovakia, handed out no fewer than 40 bookings over the course of six Europa League games in 2016/17.

If all that suggests the Bournemouth midfielder could be a marked man in Tbilisi, he certainly won’t let it affect his appetite for the fray.