Robbie Keane's battle to establish himself as a first-team regular at Inter Milan has been dealt a blow after the Republic of Ireland striker was forced to pull out of the squad for tonight's game against Parma with a back injury.

Keane - who swapped the Premiership for Serie A when he joined Inter from Coventry for £13 million - was hoping to put in an impressive performance to dispel rumours that he is on the way out of the San Siro.

The 20-year-old has found himself on the bench in recent weeks, following the return to fitness of Christian Vieri and return to favour of Hakan Sukur, but would have featured from the start in the Coppa Italia match.

"When the manager told me yesterday that I would be playing up front with Ivan Zamorano I was delighted," said Keane. "Having missed out on the past three league games, I was really looking forward to playing.

"But when I started warming up this morning I suddenly felt a really bad pain in my back and realised immediately that I would have to pull out of the team. With all the speculation of the last few days, I was looking forward to tonight's game - I want to show by my performances that I deserve to be in the first team.

"I knew when I signed that Inter had six international strikers on their books and I am determined to succeed by training hard and playing well. I have settled well in Italy, I am learning the language, moved into an apartment and made a number of new friends. Everything is going really well here."