Trapattoni prepares for new faces show

INTERNATIONAL FRIENDLY REPUBLIC OF IRELAND v NORWAY:GIOVANNI TRAPATTONI gave a run-out yesterday to that old line about there being no such thing as a friendly game in international football. This is something usually said by managers who have been asked by their employers to do something, anything, to boost ticket sales and the FAI will doubtless have appreciated whatever dig-out is going on that front.

Still, given the continuing rate at which he is losing players ahead of tomorrow’s encounter with Norway, his comments may have been primarily aimed at dissuading those squad members who have turned up so far and appear to be fit from simply turning on their heels and heading back home.

Darron Gibson and Keiren Westwood were the latest two members of the Italian’s squad to send word that they would not now be travelling, with the Manchester United midfielder staying in England to be with his daughter, Evie, who is unwell and the Coventry City goalkeeper apparently too ill to make the journey himself.

With just two goalkeepers named in the original squad, the latter’s withdrawal has prompted a call-up for Joe Murphy but Trapattoni insisted that, as the 21 players he reckons to still have at his disposal is enough to be getting on with, he will not be bringing anyone else in.

But by last night he was down to 19 with Seán St Ledger and Paul Green (both knee) returning to England after being ruled out of the game following scans that highlighted the scale of their injuries while there is bound to be some pressure to ensure that nothing happens to compound the broken bone that Doyle played with for Wolves over the weekend.

In the circumstances, then, the manager’s team selection looks set to include pretty much all of his remaining “senior” players with a couple of newcomers, including Séamus Coleman, now virtually certain to start while the rest man the bench.

Trapattoni suggested that he wants to see Coleman “immediately”, while Darren O’Dea looks set to partner John O’Shea in central defence after indicating that he is fit enough to play even though he hasn’t featured for Ipswich in recent weeks because of injury.

“I spoke with O’Dea last week and he said he is ready to play, that he was on bench,” he remarked before observing: “He is a defender. Defenders don’t run a lot, midfielders have to run more but for defenders the condition isn’t usually very important.”

This, of course, is a philosophy by which Richard Dunne has lived at least half of his career.

The loss of so many defenders, including Dunne of course, would appear to have given rise to just the sort of scenario in which Steven Reid suggested recently that he would return to the Ireland set-up if requested, but Trapattoni more or less dismissed the idea yesterday, suggesting that he now had two players for each of the positions in which Reid might be used and then said: “We follow him,” a phrase that may well be some sort of Italian joke given that the manager appears only ever to use it in relation to players he has no intention of ever bringing back.

Certainly he was quick on this occasion to liken the question to one about Lee Carsley who, as it happens, hasn’t been asked about since it became entirely clear that Trapattoni viewed him as part of the team’s past rather than its future.

Carsley, though, is 36 while Reid is just 29, more or less at the peak of his career if he could stay fit, which he has done for a while, and well worth, at his best, his place in the Ireland team, never mind a seriously weakened squad.

The 71-year-old, in any case, appears to have turned his attention elsewhere and another area in which he will be looking at a new face tomorrow is likely to be in attack where Jonathan Walters seems set to make his senior debut the best part of a decade after first expressing a desire to play for Ireland.

“The longer it went on, I sort of put it at the back of the mind and didn’t concentrate on it but I always hoped the call would come,” said the 27-year-old, whose mother, Helen Brady, came from Tolka Road in Dublin.

“There was a time last year when I thought it might have happened. There was a couple of lads at Ipswich who got called into squads, Damien (Delaney) and Alex (Bruce), so I thought I might have got a little look in then, but it never came about. But it was just about concentrating on what I’ve been doing for the club.”

Walters’ mother, who worked as a nurse after moving to the Wirral near Liverpool and marrying his father Jim, passed away 15 years ago but the Dublin wing of the family will be well represented at the game tomorrow night while his father and brothers are travelling over from England to see it.

The much-travelled striker is not exactly a goal machine but he is well regarded for his ability to unsettle defenders, win the ball and bring those around him into the game, all attributes that Trapattoni has been in the market for. He is, he admits, still adapting to life in the Premier League but feels he can build on the opportunities he is getting both at club and now international levels to make further strides over the next few years, and he is particularly hopeful of doing enough over the next day or two to catch the Italian’s eye.

“A couple of lads have pulled out. Robbie and Caleb as well, so there’s only three or four of us. There’s a chance for me to do something and hopefully I can take it,” he said.