Republic of Ireland manager Heimir Hallgrimsson says Blues forward Sammie Szmodics withdrew from his squad having felt some soreness in his ankle after coming on late in the final Town game of the season against West Ham on Sunday.

The FAI announced that Szmodics had pulled out of the party for the friendlies against Senegal and Luxembourg this morning with Hallgrimsson outlining the reason why at a later press conference.

“Sammie played 10, 15 minutes in the last game for Ipswich, but his ankle got sore so we decided to call in Andy Moran [of Stoke City] as a winger-ish-type,” the Icelander said.

Szmodics was making his first appearance for the Blues since undergoing surgery three months ago.

Dara O’Shea and Jack Taylor remain in the squad for the games against the Senegalese at the Aviva Stadium, Dublin on Friday 6th June and in Luxembourg on Tuesday 10th June.

Meanwhile, Hallgrimsson says he expects Town wideman Chieo Ogbene to be fit and ready for his squad for their first World Cup qualifiers in the new season, the former Luton man having been out of action since rupturing an achilles at Brentford in October.

“Yeah, he will be available,” he added. “According to him, he is going to be the fittest player in pre-season so definitely in September he will be ready for us.” 

Photo: Andrew Surma/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect

Dennyx4 added 13:20 - May 29 Hope nothing too serious for Szmodics, but good news on Ogbene’s fitness later in the article.
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MickMillsTash added 15:43 - May 29 Szomdics is a really intelligent player and we missed him when he was out. Whatever the issue is we need it sorted by August 10th , The right choice has been made rather than playing these 2 friendlies
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Bazza8564 added 08:57 - May 30 Summer internationals are nothing but a risk to a decent pre season. Get them back to playford Road and all in for a proper ITFC pre-season. Interesting that of the players we lost long term last season, only Burns went through pre-season with us
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