Mick McCarthy insisted yesterday that, despite reports to the contrary, he still expects Ireland regulars Kevin Kilbane and Roy Keane to be available for both legs of the Republic's World Cup play-off against Iran.
Kilbane's participation had looked to be seriously in doubt after his failure even to make the bench for Sunderland's game with Leicester over the weekend. But McCarthy maintained yesterday that he had never expected the former West Brom winger to be involved in the Premiership clash.
"He wasn't ready but there's another week before our game," said the Republic of Ireland boss. "That gives Kevin the time he needs and he'll be fit. I don't know that for a fact, but I'm hopeful and I think that it's the way that things will turn out."
Keane, meanwhile, looks set to miss out on the squad's early training sessions, with the Manchester United skipper expected to stay on at Old Trafford in order to have additional treatment on the knee injury that has kept him out of his club's recent games.
Despite the problem, though, and Alex Ferguson's prediction on Sunday that the 30-year-old would play in just one of the Ireland matches, McCarthy's gut instinct is that the Corkman will participate in both games.
"What it comes down to is the fact that if Roy is fit then he'll play and Roy is the one best placed to make that decision. What I know, though, is that Roy is desperate to play in these games. It might be that he comes in later in the week and it might be that he misses out on some of the build-up but given how anxious he is to be a part of it all, I think he'll be ready by Saturday."
McCarthy's other major injury concerns over the weekend were Steven Reid and Mark Kennedy and there was better news about those two yesterday as well, with Millwall boss Mark McGhee predicting that his player will recover from a back problem in time to be considered for Saturday's game and Dave Jones at Wolves saying that Kennedy might be around for the second leg.
"I spoke to Mark (McGhee) today and he told me that if they had a game on Saturday he would expect Steven to be available. I can't see any reason why the situation won't be the same with us," said McCarthy.
Jones, meanwhile, observed that "Mark has been receiving intensive treatment over the past week and while he isn't going to be fit enough to play against Iran on Saturday, we haven't given up hope of getting him fit enough for the return leg of the tie."
Jones's comments follow a visit by Kennedy to a specialist yesterday after which the player was told that his hamstring problem is not as bad as had been originally believed.
All of which is positive news for McCarthy who said yesterday that he has, as far as he knows, no fresh injuries to worry about ahead of this afternoon's first squad training session.
"I don't go ringing around looking for bad news," said McCarthy, "but I'm taking the fact that nobody's called me with any as a good sign, but we'll just have to wait and see until everybody is in before we can be certain about what the position is."
The FAI, meanwhile, has confirmed that the Iranian Football federation has taken up its full allocation of 3,000 seats for Saturday's game at Lansdowne Road.
Because of this the game is now officially sold out. The Association, meanwhile, says that it is still awaiting information from Tehran regarding the availability of tickets for the return game, but expects some tickets to be made available to FAI officials.
