Reshaped midfield must dominate

EURO 2004 QUALIFIER: Less than a week after Brian Kerr warned against becoming overly reliant on his side's most creative member, the team hotel yesterday resembled a scene from Waiting on Duffer, a variation on the Beckett play in which a group of people also stand around waiting hopefully as it gradually becomes obvious that they will be not be rewarded for their efforts.

Kerr would say little about Damien Duff's chances of playing against Georgia at Lansdowne Road this evening, although he did confirm that the Blackburn player had been fit enough to do some work in the gym yesterday morning and that he was feeling "much better".

Generally, there is some optimism that the 24-year-old will recover sufficiently to play, although even then it seems unlikely that he will be asked to fill as pivotal a role as he was handed against Albania.

The level of concern over Duff's fitness, though, underlines just how important he has become to a team that has struggled on occasion to open up what would be considered to be lesser sides in games like tonight's.

If he does prove his fitness today, it's hard to imagine Kerr won't take a chance on starting him, but the manager must then figure out where it is the Dubliner will best help the home side break down a Georgian defence that possesses a couple of highly-rated players, not least Milan's talented left back Kakhi Kaladze.

While confirming yesterday that he would make some changes in personnel from the side that narrowly beat Albania, Kerr gave little away about the tactical approach, but it seems almost certain that, with his key candidate to occupy the space behind the front two less than 100 per cent fit, the team will revert to the 4-4-2 with which they remain more familiar.

The option then is either to play Duff up front, where he has done steadily better for the Republic over the past couple of years, or to place him wide in midfield where he looks happiest of all.

It is a tight call for the Ireland manager for whom there is a knock-on effect wherever the gifted Blackburn player is deployed. If Mark Kinsella is to be rested and Lee Carsley played in his place, then Steven Reid looks the only real option on the right side of midfield.

That, however, could leave Kerr needing to use two of his substitutions on replacing players returning from injury, while Gary Doherty would ideally not be left on for 90 minutes if he starts.

Kerr picked David Connolly for the Albania game on the basis, he said, of the player's performance in training, and while the Wimbledon striker performed well enough he rarely looked like scoring himself.

Worse, the 26-year-old could never be expected to present an aerial challenge in the event that Ireland's wide midfielders manage to generate a supply of decent crosses, and for that reason, in particular, he may end up having to settle for a place on the bench as Doherty, despite his limitations at this level, is again handed the task of disrupting the opposition's central defence.

The Georgians are rated as stronger than the Albanians by the Irish management team, who will therefore know that the home side will have to lift their game considerably over Saturday's performance.

Matt Holland and whoever plays beside him will, in particular, have to impose themselves in a way that Ireland's midfield utterly failed to at the weekend.

Similarly, the hope will be that the home side can stretch the Georgians at the back with any two from Kevin Kilbane (who seems unlikely to be dropped at this point), Duff, Reid and Carsley providing an element of width that was missed through much of the Albanian game.

Elsewhere, it is hard to see why any changes would be made and it is probable that a back four which, for the most part, did well in Tbilisi and went largely untroubled at the weekend will be retained

If everyone were fully fit, of course, Kerr's hand would be a good deal stronger, but then there can be little enough complaint when the Georgians will be obliged to take the field this evening without a good number of the their best players, including skipper Giorgi Nemsadze, the highly promising Dinamo Tbilisi midfielder David Kvirkvelia and Levan Kobiashvili, the Freiburg wideman who tied O'Shea up in knots with his twisting, second-half runs and who might well have had a penalty when the Manchester United left back attempted to tackle him while "dizzy" from his repeated turns.

And while there has been much talk during the past week about the scale of Kerr's team's revival in this qualifying group, the fact remains the chances of qualifying for next year's finals in Portugal should really not be scuppered by anybody other than Russia or Switzerland, certainly not at home by a team ranked 84 in the world that has arrived well short of full strength.

Not for the first time, though, this is a game that should be more about the ability of the Irish to produce their best than the Georgians' ability to counter them. Kerr's record of four wins and a draw is impressive, but with the exception of the first-half display against a dismal looking Scotland side, none of the team's performances since he took over really has been.

Needless to say, if the team wins without playing well there will be few complaints, but it would be an opportune time for his players to reassert themselves ahead of the autumn and the sterner tests that this campaign still holds in store.

POSSIBLE LINE-UPS

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND: Given (Newcastle United); Carr (Tottenham Hotspur), Cunningham (Birmingham City), Breen (West Ham), O'Shea (Manchester United); Duff (Blackburn Rovers), Carsley (Everton), Holland (Ipswich Town), Kilbane (Sunderland); Keane (Tottenham Hotspur), Doherty (Tottenham Hotspur).

GEORGIA: Lomaia (Lokomotiv Tbilisi); O Khizaneishvili (Dinamo Tbilisi), Didava (Kocaelspor), Z Shashiashvili (Dundee), Kaladze (Milan); Rekhviashvili (Torpedo Metalurg), Asatiani (Lokomotiv Moscow), Burduli (Dinamo Tbilisi), Kinkladze (Derby Co); Demetrdze (Metalurg, Donetsk), Arveladze (Rangers).