By Paul Doyle
New Republic of Ireland u-21 international Brian Shelley is set to miss Bohemians trip to Derry tomorrow night and pose a severe headache manager Pete Mahon.
The full-back, who missed Bohemians incredible 6-4 home defeat by Shelbourne last Friday because he was busy making his international debut visited a doctor this morning to discuss a persistent throat infection and was told he should see a specialist in hospital tomorrow with a view to having his tonsils removed.
"This infection has already caused me to miss games this season," Shelley told ireland.com, "it flared up again yesterday so I went to a doctor this morning and he said I might need to get my tonsils out. I hope I do get them removed because I want to miss as few matches as possible over this."
The news of Shelley’s absence was described as "a bit of a disaster" by Bohemians boss Pete Mahon who now has a dearth of first-choice defenders available to him for tomorrow’s night’s clash.
"We had planned all our training this week around Brian coming back and now we have to change all that" said Mahon.
Avery John is also out, having delayed his return from international duty in order to attend the funeral of former Trinidad and Tobago team-mate Mickey Trotman. Mahon was forced to field a back three last week against Shelbourne and is hoping to avoid having to do likewise tomorrow.
"I don’t like the back three, and neither do the players" explained Mahon, "we tried it last year and saw the consequences. We only used it last Friday because we were forced into it, and if there’s anyway of avoiding it tomorrow night, we will."
Hopes for avoiding it will depend on the fitness of Stephen Caffrey. If he recovers from the injury that kept him out of last week's game, he will partner Anthony Shevlin, who was promoted from Bohemians u-21 team only last Friday, in the centre of defence.