Kerr plans without Morrison

World Cup 2006 qualifying Ireland v Faroe Islands: Clinton Morrison is out of tomorrow's World Cup game against the Faroe Islands at Lansdowne Road after an MRI scan revealed he will require surgery to repair damage to the cartilage in his left knee he injured in Saturday's qualifier against France at the Stade de France.

The 25-year-old has returned to Birmingham to see his club's medical staff. After that he is expected to have the operation, which normally sidelines players for around four or five weeks.

The news is a major setback for the striker who had finally ended his long barren spell at international level with goals against Cyprus and Switzerland before making a bright start to the game in Paris. It will also severely dent his hopes of playing his way back into the team at St Andrews at a time when his manager Steve Bruce had already lost Mikael Forssell to injury for the rest of the season and allowed Stern John to join Coventry City.

Before confirmation of the results Brian Kerr said: "It isn't looking good . . . but I think that we've got cover in every position. I thought about this sort of thing when I named the squad and expected some sort of problems would arise between training, the first game and this match.

Kerr has only a couple of fit strikers in the squad at this stage (David Connolly and Jonathan Macken are still on standby although there was no suggestion yesterday that either was about to be called in) but, he insists: "We have players who have played up front so I don't consider it that great a problem."

Gary Doherty and Alan Lee are among the options available to the manager if he decides to change things about from Saturday but it seems more likely that he will stick with much the same personnel although Damien Duff and Andy Reid may switch positions with the Chelsea player partnering Robbie Keane up front.

Asked whether he preferred to persist with the sort of tactical approach that served the Irish well over the weekend or switch to something a little more direct Kerr observed that he felt the best game plan is "not to be too predictable. We'll look to mix things up and play it at a decent tempo and if we do that then it will certainly be difficult for them although they've shown at this stage that they can be a hard side to beat.

"They only drew in Cyprus at the weekend because they conceded a late equaliser and they were a bit unlucky against France, both of the French goals looked offside.

"I was surprised as well by the result in Switzerland (where the Faroese lost 6-0) although I met their coach (Henrik Larsen) in Stockholm since then and he said there were a few specific problems that made life difficult for them that night. It was unusually warm there at the time for a start and while we can't turn up the heat in Dublin in an ecological sense we would certainly hope to make it hot for them in every other way."

The manager shrugged off reports yesterday that Roy Keane was a doubt for tomorrow's game because of a knee injury claiming that the midfielder had done "more than anyone in training this morning. He didn't play in the game at the end," he added, "but he did a lot of running out there."

Ireland's only other problems related to full-backs Stephen Carr and John O'Shea with both reported to have taken slight knocks at the Stade de France. Neither, however, is considered a doubt for the game.

Irish skipper Kenny Cunningham, meanwhile, insists that the players have put Saturday's draw behind them as they prepare for a game they know they really should win.

"It's football and that means anything can happen," he said, "but we're well aware that if we don't win this one then everything that we achieved on Saturday will have, more or less, been for nothing.

"Despite all the euphoria after the game in Paris it hasn't really been a topic of conversation among the players since," the 33-year-old defender said. "The bottom line with these sort of things is that if you don't give teams the respect they deserve then it has a habit of coming back to haunt you. We certainly won't be making that mistake."

If the Irish side can reproduce anything like the form displayed in Paris then there will clearly be little to worry about tomorrow. The visitors are a strong and well-organised side but they are decidedly limited in terms of individual talent.

A runaway win would certainly provide a further boost to confidence but, Cunningham says, the Irish will settle for a poor performance if they still manage to take the three points. "The important thing is that we're a single goal in front when the final whistle goes and whether it comes in the first minute or the 90th isn't all that important. How we play," he concluded, "is a little bit secondary as well."