Good news..... Henchoz is out for 5 weeks after injuring himself against Chelsea yesterday. Feeling more upbeat after hearing that and seeing Robbie's screamer for Spurs yesterday.
That's good news alright. Also, with Harte and Kilbane both playing reasonably well in their last two matches, we should be good enough for the Swiss who have a notorious soft centre and won't fancy a battle at Lansdowne. But, who should play right back for us? Kelly, Kenna, O'Shea, Cunningham, Delap, Healy? I'd go with Kenna who's playing well week in week out but Mick will go for Kelly I'd expect despite his shocking form.
Kenna would be my first choice, O'Shea maybe, but given Breens shocking form he should start in the middle, he wont, but we can all hope he will.
Healy and Delap are both best in midfield....Delap could do the job but it'd be more if there were no real right-backs. Same for O'Shea - he was only covering there for Man Utd, and I somehow don't think that McCarthy's gonna give him his first start out of position. There's a case to be made for playing Cunningham on the right with O'Shea in the middle, which looks fairly solid, but that would mean moving the captain into a less influential position (not that he looked very influential in Russia). As well as that, Cunningham's strength are in his defensive skills, not going forward to support the attack, which you'd want your fullbacks to do at home. Kenna's been playing consistently well, but he's been out of the international setup since the Euro 2000 playoffs, so I'm not sure how smoothly he'd slot into the team. And, same as Cunningham, going forward wouldn't be a major strong point. Which leaves us with Kelly. A month ago it would have looked very dodgy, but he's become more involved in the last couple of weeks after spending the first part of the season on the bench. It's not ideal, but it's better than it was not too long ago. His form hasn't been spectacular, but it hasn't been self-destructive either, and he's the best out of that lot going forward. It's basically Kenna v Kelly, and I'd say Kelly will have the edge seing as he's the man in possession, as it were. I'd be hoping that O'Shea will get a chance alongside Cunningham.....he'll have to blood him one of these days....