Harry Arter has joined the long list of players set to miss Ireland's World Cup qualifying game against Georgia on Thursday with Roy Keane confirming that the news from Bournemouth is that the player's injury will, at the very least, keep him out of first of this week's two matches.
“He’s had a scan,” said the Corkman. “It was positive, but the lad is still feeling tight. He hasn’t trained today and if you’re not training two days before a game, that a problem. Hopefully it settles down and he can play a part in the second game. It’s unfortunate; he’s had some bad luck with injuries.”
There was little other change on the injury front as the squad continued its preparation at Abbotstown but James McCarthy continues to take some part in training and Keane has certainly not ruled him out of either game.
“He did a bit more today,” he said. “We’re usually cautious with players, but he’s been really positive. He trained today and had no reaction. He looked pretty sharp and we’ll see how he is and we’ll get feedback from the medical staff, but he seems really positive and upbeat about his recovery and I expect him to be available on Thursday.”
Keane sounded optimistic, meanwhile, about the longer terms prospects of Brentford striker Scott Hogan declaring to play for the Republic of Ireland.
“The manager has touched base with him and I think he’s due to meet up with him in the next few weeks,” he said. It seems, he continued, that “he’s keen to come on board. The manager’s looking after that and it would be great to get him involved. He’s a good player, a proper goalscorer. Fingers crossed there’ll be some good news on that over the next month or two.”
The preparations for Thursday’s game, he feels, are going well, but he remains cautious about Georgia given how tight some of the scorelines in Ireland’s previous meeting with them have been.
“They must count themselves unlucky that in a couple of games they’ve lost to us by the odd goal. Now, if we can win by the odd goal on Thursday night then fantastic. But they’ll up for a challenge. In every game I’ve seen them they’re tough boys, they’ll have ago and I think they’ll enjoy coming to Dublin on Thursday.
“So we’re in for a tough game but we’ll give them a tough game too. We’ll be raring, I think we’ll be sharper than in the last game; a lot of our lads are a lot fitter than they were previously so I think we’ll be in a better position than before we went to Serbia. I give Georgia plenty of plaudits but they’ll know they’re in for a tough game when they come to us.”
Asked about the ongoing stories of corruption in the English game, Keane suggested that it was somewhat inevitable that there would be problems.
“I don’t think it’s a day today for me to go into that,” he said. “I’m here to talk about our game coming up because we’d be here all day talking about it. It’s part of the game. When there’s so much money involved in the game that, we have said it before, there will be greed.”
