Ireland manager Martin O’Neill.
REPUBLIC of Ireland manager Martin O’Neill is confident that Donegal’s Seamus Coleman will be fit and available to face Georgia tonight at the Aviva Stadium.
The Everton defender, who hails from Killybegs, missed Friday’s Euro 2016 qualifier game against Gibraltar due to a tight hamstring.
He was replaced by the impressive Cyrus Christie in competitive debut in an Irish shirt, grabbing the opening goal on his team’s travels.
However, O’Neill is expect to pick Coleman ahead of Christie.
Coleman trained at Abbotstown on Sunday morning and the manager confirmed his belief that the former Sligo Rovers man would be fit to start.
Derry’s Eunan O’Kane was called up to the Republic of Ireland squad for the Gibraltar and Georgia games.
However, the Bournemouth player didn’t make it onto the substitutes bench for the Gibraltar game.
O’Neill said: “Seamus has done a little bit. He’s feeling much, much better and at this moment, it looks as if he’s going to be okay.
“Cyrus did brilliantly, really brilliantly, for us. He got the important first goal, obviously had a big moment just before half-time when he back-headed one that could have been very, very dangerous for us.
“But I think if Seamus, as seems, is fit, Seamus would play. Cyrus is great – he’s got a good future ahead of him – but Seamus is a real quality player.”
And O’Neill has warned that his team will have to scrap for “every single particle” if they are to realise their dream of a second successive trip to the European Championship finals.
Ireland received a timely boost to their hopes of taking part in France on Friday evening when a 4-0 victory over Gibraltar, coupled with Scotland’s 1-0 defeat in Georgia, left them in third place in Group D and with one hand on a play-off berth.
However, while ambitions may have been rekindled, O’Neill knows that that will change rapidly if they fail to beat the Georgians at the Lansdowne Road venue on Monday ahead of next month’s double-header against leaders Germany and early pace-setters Poland.
He said: “We all have a habit of getting ahead of ourselves – I heard something one day that it is ours to lose.
“We have got a game against Germany, we have got a game against Poland, we have got this tough game here against a resurgent Georgia side who will come here with plenty of confidence – they have just beaten Scotland.
“Things are difficult for us. At this minute, we are not capable of being like Spain, of being able to wipe the floor with somebody. We have to fight for every single particle there’s going.
“We have to battle for it. We have to find some ways of winning football matches. We are in there, we are in there fighting – we were even if Scotland had won, we were still in the mix.
“But we are far from anything, anything at all. We have to try to win (on Monday night). I can’t even consider October at all until we get points on the board. We need to win – that has to be our total and utter focus, and that is the players’.
“Whether we do that or not, whether we are a bit unlucky, we hit the post a couple of times like we did against Poland and don’t get the result, or whether Georgia come out actually and just sweep us off the field, that’s something we don’t know.
“But I think we are ready for the game.”
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