Martin O’Neill is currently a very anxious and hopeful player of the waiting game.
The Republic of Ireland manager took training at Abbotstown on Monday and the phrase “injury update” was on everybody’s lips.
With Shane Long fighting an ankle injury to be fit in time for Ireland’s Euro 2016 play-off first-leg against Bosnia and John O’Shea awaiting news on his hamstring for the second-leg (he’s suspended for the game in Zenica), O’Neill didn’t reveal much about the progress of either of his two biggest concerns.
“Shane has seen a specialist today,” O’Neill said. “I think he got an injection and he hasn’t ruled himself out yet at this moment. Naturally, he hasn’t done that much work since he came off against Poland.
“That again might be one where the next couple of days would tell us just about everything, but it would be great if he felt after the injection that his foot was fine and he was raring to go.”
O’Shea will have an extra three days of recovery time as he is suspended for the away leg but, still, O’Neill couldn’t give away much.
“[O’Shea is] not feeling too bad, but we’ll see. I think he thought the Sunderland game at the weekend might have come a wee bit too early, but there are a few extra days and we’ll see how he is by Wednesday.”
There is also the question about who will start in goal against Bosnia, with Rob Elliot being the obvious candidate simply due to his form for Newcastle.
Steve McClaren wants Martin O'Neill to leave Rob Elliot out of Bosnia play-offs https://t.co/VCnY6c70Mj pic.twitter.com/DBTwV4FQko
— SportsJOE (@SportsJOEdotie) November 8, 2015
The Magpies stopper put in a man-of-the-match performance at the weekend despite a knock and club manager Steve McClaren claimed that he didn’t want his goalkeeper to go on international duty which is something that O’Neill simply doesn’t understand.
“I’ve been a club manager myself although I find this one a wee bit strange when Rob actually played the game and was man-of-the-match. He is being assessed by a specialist again today (Monday) and we will get an update with him either later on this evening or maybe tomorrow morning.”
