O'Neill: Defensive Duo Will Miss Out On Peace Cup

As the club make final preparation to head out to Korea for the forthcoming Peace Cup involving ourselves, Seongnam, Groningen and Hamburg, Martin O'Neill has revealed two players will miss the trip through injury - despite only coming back to training on Wednesday.

Phil Bardsley injured himself in training on Thursday the gaffer revealed, and it's incredibly unlikely that he'll make Monday's flight out to the tournament;

He went over on his ankle and it's really sore. Nothing's broken, but he's done a bit of damage. He's very doubtful and I don't think the trip would be good for him. One, he wouldn't be able to play and two, being back and forth on a plane would be no benefit.

Seems perfectly reasonable, there's little to no point in rushing players back from injury so early in the preseason, and there's plenty of opportunity upon the first teams return to get back to full fitness prior to the start of the season.

Matt Kilgallon looks set to miss out too it has been revealed, after he managed to injure himself putting in some extra work this summer;

Matt had been trying to do some work himself over the summer to keep fit and he injured himself doing that. He came back with a bit of a problem so the best thing to do is to leave him out of it I think.

It leaves us light defensively, but there's only two games to play, and it will afford chances for younger players, whom O'Neill has pledged to use on the trip to the Far East. Louis Laing, Roarie Deacon, Billy Knott, John Egan and Ryan Noble all lead the list of youngsters who should see some first team action during the two-game tournament which starts next Thursday.