Newly appointed interim Ireland boss John O'Shea hasn't wasted any time in surveying his options for the upcoming friendlies against Belgium and Switzerland. The former Manchester United man was at Ewood Park on Tuesday evening and watched an entertaining 1-1 draw between Blackburn Rovers and Millwall.
There was plenty of Irish interest on show as Danny McNamara and Aidomo Emakhu started for the visitors and new loan signing Michael Obafemi came off the bench to score the opener of the game.
However, O'Shea's eyes would have been firmly fixed on a man who just can't stop scoring. Blackburn forward Sammie Szmodics notched his 20th Championship goal of the season. Szmodics is the 2nd top scorer in the Championship and has 26 goals in all competitions.
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🇮🇪| 26th goal of the season for Sammie Szmodics tonight
Might just schedule this kind of post for every time he plays, ridiculous form
👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 pic.twitter.com/B9x0BKeCtp— IrishPropaganda🇮🇪⚽️ (@IrishPropaganda) March 5, 2024
O'Shea was on Talksport on Wednseday morning and spoke of how he wants to keep consistency within the Irish squad but that he is open to bringing new caps in.
Look ultimately, the squad won't particularly change too much, because you want to keep that bit of consistency too. But hopefully there might be one or two fresh faces as well in the squad.
So we'll see what happens over the next 10 days, 14 days. Hopefully everyone stays fit and we can look for forward to a good camp.
The big thing now at the minute is I’m looking at games in France and Italy to catch up on lads who could potentially be in the squad.
That last sentence suggests Lyon's Jake O'Brien is also firmly on O'Shea's radar.
You can listen to the full interview here.
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The 28-year-old born in Colchester, qualifies for the Republic of Ireland through his Longford born grandmother was originally called into the squad in 2021 before pulling out through injury. Most recently he came into the squad in October due to an injury to Aaron Connolly. However, he ended up pulling out for personal reasons.
Szmodics also qualifies for Hungary, who Ireland will face in June before they compete at Euro 2024 in Germany. However, fortunately for Ireland he seemed to pour cold water over that possibility in a recent interview reaffirming his commitment to Ireland.
O'Shea will name his first Ireland squad on March 14 and given his presence at Ewood Park last night you would expect Szmodics to receive a call up and with a real chance to feature for his first cap.
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