Soccer:Kevin Doyle played over an hour for Wolves against Newcastle in their 1-1 draw this afternoon, allaying fears over the Republic of Ireland striker's availability for the forthcoming Euro 2012 qualifiers against Armenia and Andorra.
But a question mark remains over Keith Andrews' availability for the double-header after the midfielder missed Blackburn’s 2-1 defeat by Arsenal as he continues to recover from a groin problem.
Winger Keith Treacy is also a doubt after he was injured during Preston’s 1-0 defeat at former club Sheffield United. Treacy, who rattled the crossbar with a third-minute free-kick, hobbled off just before the hour mark but his injury is not thought to be too serious.
Concerns over Doyle’s fitness prompted Ireland manager Giovanni Trapattoni to draft Cillian Sheridan into his squad yesterday, but the forward (who picked up a rare yellow card for dissent) showed he is approaching full fitness before making way for Stephen Fletcher on 72 minutes.
His strike partner for Ireland, Robbie Keane, was an unused substitute during Tottenham’s shock 1-0 defeat at the hands of Wigan with manager Harry Redknapp deploying Jermain Defoe, Peter Crouch and Roman Pavlyuchenko ahead of the Irish skipper.
Elsewhere, Glenn Whelan was unfortunate not to get on the scoresheet during Stoke’s 2-0 loss at league leaders Chelsea. The Irish midfielder, sprung from the bench after 50 minutes with his side 1-0 down, almost drew stoke level but his 25-yard effort cracked against Petr Cech’s crossbar and flew away to safety.
Aidan McGeady is still waiting to make his Spartak Moscow debut following his €12 million transfer from Celtic. McGeady had been expected to feature in today’s match with Terek Grozny – which the Moscow club lost 2-0 – but was omitted from the travelling party.
The Irish squad will assemble in Dublin tomorrow evening ahead of the away trip to Armenia next Friday (4pm Irish time) and the home match against Andorra the following Tuesday evening.