Manner of Keane's withdrawal mysterious

On Soccer: Just a few weeks after Brian Kerr said he spends little time considering what might be his best line-up for a game until he sees which players arrive to play in it, the wisdom of the approach has been underlined by the early withdrawals from his squad for the first two games of Ireland's World Cup qualifying campaign.

Had they been fit for the games against Cyprus on Saturday and Switzerland on Wednesday week it is almost certain Matt Holland would have partnered Roy Keane in the centre of the Republic of Ireland team's midfield. Now Kerr is four days from having to reveal his Plan B and, though there is no great shortage of options for him, none stand out as particularly obvious at this time.

The loss of Keane is, of course, a huge blow to the Ireland manager, although what remains most baffling about the news of the midfielder's withdrawal is the manner in which it was revealed last Wednesday. If Manchester United and the FAI are to be believed, the Corkman played - over the space of six days - all 90 minutes of the Premiership game against Norwich as well as a rather low-key international, against Bulgaria, with cracked ribs.

During this time almost nothing was made of the injury in public by anyone and Alex Ferguson raised no significant objection to the 33-year-old travelling to Dublin for the meeting with Bulgaria. During the build-up to that game, Keane trained with the rest of the squad and Kerr made no mention of the problem to the media.

Then, last Tuesday, he named the United skipper in his squad again. The timing of the squad's announcement was, according to the FAI, dictated by the need to inform clubs by that day their players were to be called up.

But Kerr was unavailable to discuss his selection with journalists until the next day due to other commitments. By then, there should have been time for United, or even the player, to get back to the Irish manager with the bad news. Instead, Kerr made no mention of anticipating any hitch in connection with his availability.

On the face of it, there's little to suggest Kerr did not hear the news in much the same way as everybody else, when the contents of a Ferguson interview with MUTV became public early that evening, and a statement was put out at 9 p.m. to the effect the FAI's medical people would be in touch with their opposite numbers at Old Trafford.

That Keane is genuinely injured seems beyond question given he has not featured in United's last three games. Having defied Ferguson's wishes to make an international comeback in the first place, it would also be ludicrous if he played in friendly games against Romania and Bulgaria only to buckle underpressure from his club manager ahead of World Cup qualifiers - the second of which is one of the most important ties of the campaign.

If Kerr really didn't know the player was so badly injured, however, it suggests he has little better of a relationship with the midfielder than his predecessor enjoyed. There could not, one presumes, be the personal enmity, but there would hardly be much evidence of respect either.

If, on the other hand, Kerr was aware Keane was about to be pulled from his squad then his failure to mention this at Wednesday's press conference is slightly baffling. All he succeeded in doing was to give rise to the suspicion he didn't know what was going on. While it has long been clear he cares little for what the media think these days, one would have thought anything which might fuel the perception on the part of other players that he is being messed about by the former Ireland skipper would be best avoided.

After all, Mick McCarthy enjoyed the almost unanimous support of the players two years ago because he was obliged to deal with Keane and had made a great many concessions in his attempt to do so. Kerr, on the other hand, has gone out of his way to bring the player back, but with assurances to other squad members he is to be treated no differently to anybody else.

Whatever the real circumstances of Keane's withdrawal, there is no questioning the seriousness of his loss with the game in Basel just the sort of contest in which his return was supposed to prove so beneficial. The suggestion is the midfielder will be back in a couple of weeks, and should, therefore, be fit for the trip to Paris, although it's questionable whether his presence will be quite so important there.

The opening games of the last World Cup campaign may have provided evidence you should never write off visits to the continent's major footballing powers as a lost cause, but the consensus is that even after the loss of so many established stars, the French should emerge as winners of this group.

A result at the Stade de France would be a huge bonus to the Irish team's prospects whereas a result in Basel against a Swiss side that has lost its leading striker, first-choice goalkeeper and most industrious midfielder (Stephane Chapuisat, Jorg Stiel and Fabio Celestini respectively), since Euro 2004 is likely to have a more profound impact on Ireland's chances of making it to Germany in two years' time.