Shane Long would just be a bonus at this stage.
The Southampton striker doesn’t want to be ruled out of Ireland’s opening clash with Bosnia on Friday but Martin O’Neill isn’t banking on him to lead the line for the country.
Long hasn’t kicked a ball since injuring his ankle in Poland and, whilst he continues to work on his fitness in Southampton, O’Neill is planning without him. For now.
“I think sometimes along the way, you have to try and go with the players that you know are here and available and who actually can start a game for you,” the Irish boss stated. “Anything else, if news comes through that Shane is perfectly alright, well that’s a big bonus to us.”
Long has been in talks with the management and has signalled his intention to help out the boys in green in their hour of need – or three hours of need.
“Shane has, from a way back a couple of weeks ago – and he certainly has reiterated the point – that he didn’t want to be ruled out. I can understand it,” O’Neill explained. “He came on and changed the game for us against Germany then injured himself against Poland and these games are big.
“In terms of confidence, he got a great boost from scoring the goal against Germany. He is improving, he feels that. The doctor and physio at Southampton are keeping us informed on almost an hourly basis.”
That’s a case of wait-and-see.
O’Neill, however, is happy that John O’Shea (suspended for the first leg) can make a return for Monday’s clash whilst Alan Judge is also on the mend and ready to link back up with the team.
That news though comes in the wake of Rob Elliot not travelling to Bosnia.
“I would say this in Newcastle’s case, we at the moment would probably have a wider choice of goalkeeper than they would have. Rob [Elliot] would love to play but perhaps he’s not completely right.
“We will, in essence, travel without him to go to Bosnia and then we’ll see how things are. We do have a bit of a problem with Kieren Westwood – a foot injury – but he thinks he’s okay.”
O’Shea and Alan Judge are little sparks of good news though.
“John is making progress. He’s doing something himself,” the manager confirmed. “Alan is very keen to join up. Again, he’s doing some work himself too.”
But, whilst O’Shea is a leader of the pack along with Jon Walters, neither will travel with the team to Bosnia. Instead, they will meet up with the squad back in Dublin on Saturday.
Paul McShane will also miss out having suffered more of a setback to his progress and David Meyler pulled out of Wednesday’s session in Abottstown after a collision with Marc Wilson.
