HAVING OPTED in the end against training on an artificial surface back in Dublin, Giovanni Trapattoni appears to have gambled on his players adapting without difficulty to the pitch at the Luzhniki Stadium this evening.

The Italian was keen to point out yesterday that the Russians don’t actually play on the surface much more often given that the only Spartak player to feature this evening will be Aiden McGeady and all of the other leading clubs, most notably Zenit, play their games on grass.

Still, Robbie Keane suggested yesterday it will be important for the players, who trained on the surface for the first time last night, to get a feel for it quickly this evening. Spurs, he recalled, were initially thrown by having to play Young Boys of Bern on a similar pitch last season although he admitted to having been “surprised how good it was actually was.

“It’s not one of those pitches that you can’t slide tackle on because it will rip your legs open. It was similar to what we play on. But straight away we have to get it out of our head, play our normal game as if it’s a normal pitch but be wary of their quick start.”

At the time, Tottenham boss Harry Redknapp saw the issue of the Swiss club’s pitch as far more of an issue. “I left four players out because they weren’t comfortable on the pitch in training yesterday,” he said immediately after the game in which the Londoners went 3-0 down before fighting back to score twice.

“Aaron Lennon wasn’t comfortable; Robbie Keane had a problem with his knee. Tom Huddlestone – the last time he played on astroturf, he was out for six weeks – his knee blew up like a balloon. I didn’t really want to risk Tom and I only brought him on because we were pretty desperate. You have to get used to playing on it.

“If you play on it every week, you get used to it. It’s not an excuse but I played on astroturf myself and I hated every minute of it.”

Keane, meanwhile, provided a brief hint of the public display of passion he had mustered in the lead up to the World Cup play-off against France in Paris two yards ago when he insisted yesterday that the Irish players are determined to severely test Russia this evening.

“It’s going to be tough, tough game but don’t think that we have come here in order to just roll over and make it easy for the Russians,” he said.

“Believe you me, our aim is to come here and get something out of this game.”