Martin O’Neill’s options dwindle as injuries hit squad

Martin O’Neill confirmed the loss of about a quarter of his extended squad yesterday but said James McCarthy has not given up playing against either Georgia or Moldova.

The news might prompt Everton to despatch somebody from their medical department on an urgent mission to remind their midfielder he has not trained for almost a month.

Even the Ireland manager seemed to believe that the 25-year-old might require another week of recuperation but the player, he said, remains “optimistic”.

A remarkable number of others are already resigned to watching the games from afar with O’Neill acknowledging that the scale of the injury list has come as a blow. “But you just have to curse your luck and get on with it,” he said.

Keiren Westwood, Stephen Quinn and Daryl Murphy (thigh, knee and calf respectively) were among those who stayed at or returned to their clubs yesterday while Marc Wilson was simply told to stay put after failing to secure much serious game time since the last international break.

Arter injury

Aiden McGeady, Anthony Pilkington and Kevin Doyle (hamstring, quad and ankle) are all laid up too while O’Neill was waiting last night on word from Bournemouth regarding Harry Arter who, it seems, has a groin strain and was being assessed so a call could be made on whether he should travel.

In the absence of Westwood and David Forde, who has again been left to concentrate on settling in at Portsmouth, Manchester City’s Ian Lawlor has been called in as cover for Darren Randolph and Falkirk’s Danny Rogers. If Rogers was to make an appearance, he would be the first player from the second tier in Scotland to feature for the Republic in 85 years.

Neither Murphy nor Doyle would have been expected to start but in their absence, things look a little thin up front too.

Neither of the squad’s more established international strikers, Shane Long or Jon Walters, has scored a competitive goal yet this season. Long, indeed, has gone 17 games without finding the back of the net for club or country.

Having got two in seven for West Brom since the summer, using James McClean up front at some stage is at least a consideration, O’Neill confirmed, and after getting two of Aberdeen’s four at the weekend, Adam Rooney has also been called up.

“I don’t think I would be giving away too many secrets when I say that maybe there’s a dearth of Irish international players capable of playing in that position,” O’Neill said.

“We have Shane and we have Jon. At a push and in a different style we could play James McClean in that aspect. But Adam comes in and if he gets an opportunity, I’m sure he’d like to shine.”

The decision to leave Wilson at Bournemouth suggests that the manager at least believes he is in better shape defensively and he sounded positive about Shane Duffy who, he confirmed, he has been along to watch a couple of times in recent weeks.

Hourihane claim

The Derry man did well, it seems; better at least than Conor Hourihane who might have played his way out of this squad when Barnsley visited Brighton on September 24th.

“It wasn’t one of his better games,” said the manager of Hourihane’s performance in the 2-0 defeat, “but that doesn’t mean in the next few months he can’t stake a claim”.

McCarthy, meanwhile, is apparently determined that he can feature this time, although the Georgia game, and perhaps Moldova too, might well come too soon.

“I know that he’s been doing some work but obviously he hasn’t played for some time,” he said. “He’s optimistic but we’ll see how the training sessions go with him.”

All told, it is a less than ideal situation heading into two qualifiers and O’Neill, predictably enough, is not taking any consolation from the fact that it is Georgia, who Ireland have always beaten in competitive games but never hugely convincingly, and Moldova who provide the opposition.

“I don’t think we could be treating anybody lightly,” he said. “Even if we were at full strength we couldn’t do it. I’m concerned about the game. No thoughts at all about Moldova until we play the match and that’s the message to the players.”