Roy Keane holds out hope that Sean Maguire may yet be called into the Ireland squad for next week’s World Cup qualifier with Serbia in Dublin.
Some eyebrows were raised when Maguire was not named in the 25-man squad for the qualifying double header against Georgia and Serbia.
The Preston North End man has been in fine form for his club since joining them from Cork City and he had been included in the extended squad for that qualification double header.
Keane admits that Maguire was "slightly unlucky" not to have made the final squad for Saturday’s game in Georgia, but with eight players a yellow card away from suspension and fitness concerns over Jonathan Walters, there may yet be a call-up for the 23-year-old.
The Ireland assistant manager admitted that it was a close decision to omit Maguire and said: "He was probably slightly unlucky and maybe experience comes into it, but there’s obviously a few days to play with and don’t rule him getting involved even for next week.
"Let’s see how the next few days go and the first game obviously at the weekend.
"I’ve seen him once or twice this season, he looks nice and sharp and if he keeps playing regularly for Preston, he’ll be in with a shout, of course he will be."
Despite having so many players walking a disciplinary tight-rope, Keane does not want to see any changes to the Irish approach in Georgia.
With Tuesday’s game against table-topping Serbia arguably the more significant of the two matches, the Irish number two insists that players can’t afford to look past Saturday’s clash in Tblisi.
"You could analyse it until the cows come home," he said. "The bottom line is we have a tough game on Saturday.
"You could bore yourself to death with conversations about how the fixtures have panned out, the booking situation but you just have to get on with it and focus on the game.
"Lads on yellow cards? If there’s a ball to be won go and try to win it.
"Obviously you don’t want players picking up any daft yellow cards by kicking balls away et cetera, but if you’re going into a tough international match there’s a chance you might get booked."
Ireland have a remarkable 100% record against Georgia, emerging victorious on each of the eight occasion the two sides have met.
"We’re well aware of the dangers"
Martin O’Neill’s side we perhaps fortunate to emerge with a 1-0 victory when the sides last met in October, but given that Ireland have faced also face Georgia in their successful European qualifying campaign, Keane believes they are a known quantity.
"The beauty is with Georgia, because we’ve played them recently over the last few years, we’re well aware of the dangers," he said,
"We’ve had some tough games against them, they probably find themselves a bit unlucky not to have got a result against us over the last three years.
"Let’s not worry about Tuesday, that will take care of itself. We’ll focus on the game and training over the next few days.
"We’ll let things settle over the next 24 or 48 hours, we’ll see who’s available and we’ll go for it."
