Shane Long and John O'Shea are both back in contention for Monday night's European Championship play-off second leg against Bosnia and Herzegovina after having trained in Abbotstown on Sunday morning but Martin O'Neill says will take their lack of recent game-time into consideration as he weighs up his options ahead of the game.
Daryl Murphy looks to be a significant doubt for Ireland after missing training with a calf injury sustained when he took a kick to the lower leg in Zenica on Friday night but Jon Walters is fully fit, available and almost certain to start at the Aviva stadium.
“John (O’Shea) has done a significant amount of work and that’s fine; Shane less so but the very fact that the two of them are here now is good news for us,” said the manager in the wake of the squad’s session.
“Both are upbeat, that’s for sure but we have to keep in mind that they haven’t played for a couple of weeks. I also have think about what other players are fresh so these are things to consider in the run up to the game.
“Daryl picked up an injury in his calf,” he continued. “It’s responding and he feels as though he could be ready we didn’t want to take a risk (in training this morning).”
Stephen Ward is another concern on the fitness front given the lack of first team action he has seen at Burnley over the course of the season so far but O'Neill played down suggestions that a change might be required at left-back after the way the Bosnians appeared to attack the Dubliner on Friday.
“I don’t think they tried to target anyone in particular,” he insisted. “I think they tried to get it out to the little fella on the wing (Edin Visca) because he’s a very fine player. I think they might want to get the ball into the box from as deep as possible this time so his role might become redundant.”
The manager said that he would happily have taken a situation at the start of the campaign in which his side was one home game away from qualifying for the finals in France next summer but he admitted that he does not think his side is in a position to simply defend the slender advantage it holds after Friday’s first leg.
“If we try to keep them out for 90 minutes, camp on the edge of our area, that would be a recipe for disaster. I think we have to consider getting ourselves onto the front foot; really being on the front foot and really trying to win this game.”
