{"id":324452,"date":"2026-03-02T04:43:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324452\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T04:43:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T04:43:12","slug":"big-blow-for-ireland-as-depleted-forward-line-takes-further-hit-before-play-offs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/324452\/","title":{"rendered":"Big Blow For Ireland As Depleted Forward Line Takes Further Hit Before Play-Offs"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Ireland have been dealt another injury below with their huge FIFA World Cup play-off clash vs Czechia fast approaching.<\/p>\n<p>Heimir Hallgr\u00edmsson&#8217;s options are not what they were when Ireland strung incredible back-to-back wins over Portugal and Hungary in November to sneak into a play-off spot.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, victory against Czechia in Prague will give Ireland the chance to beat either Denmark or North Macedonia in Dublin with a place at the 2026 World Cup on the line.<\/p>\n<p>It had already been reported that Evan Ferguson has returned to parent club Brighton from Roma for further assessment on an ongoing ankle problem.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, striker Adam Idah also remains on the sidelines with a hamstring issue and winger Festy Ebosele is suspended for the tie.<\/p>\n<p>Chiedozie Ogbene, impressive in Budapest before pulling up with his own hamstring problem, has not been playing with loan club Sheffield United.<\/p>\n<p>Ireland hit with Mikey Johnston injury blow<\/p>\n<p>\n        Recommended\n    <\/p>\n<p>                        <a :href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.url\" :title=\"article.title\" :aria-label=\"article.title\" class=\"not-prose col-span-2 md:col-span-1 ga-event\" data-category=\"Recommended Article Tracker\" data-action=\"click\" :data-label=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.url\" :data-value=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.url\"><\/p>\n<p>                                            <img class=\"aspect-video\" width=\"130\" height=\"73\" :src=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/article.image\" :alt=\"'Image for: ' + article.title\" loading=\"lazy\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/a><\/p>\n<p>Ireland are potentially lacking pace on the flanks and that issue has been exacerbated by injury to winger Mikey Johnston.<\/p>\n<p>The diminutive West Brom attacker was withdrawn late in their 2-1 defeat to Oxford United in the EFL Championship on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Caretaker manager James Morrison did not give a positive assessment of Johnston&#8217;s ankle issue, in a worrying update for the Irish camp.<\/p>\n<p>It was his ankle, he just got it stuck in the ground, I think,&#8221; Morrison said after the game.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll have to assess it, but it didn&#8217;t look good.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Asked if the issue could be long-term, he speculated: &#8220;Yeah, but probably the way the season&#8217;s going, it probably would be bad.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;When you&#8217;re down there, you get no luck, do you?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Johnston has proven to be a useful bench option and his pace could have given the Czechia defence troubles, particularly late on in the contest.<\/p>\n<p>That match will take place on Thursday, March 26 and the winner will advance to play the play-off final on March 31.<\/p>\n<p>SEE ALSO:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.balls.ie\/football\/czechia-injury-blow-ireland-play-off-650347\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Czechia Potentially Hit With Massive Injury Blow Ahead Of Ireland Play-Off<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ireland have been dealt another injury below with their huge FIFA World Cup play-off clash vs Czechia fast&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":324453,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,150527,112],"class_list":["post-324452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mikey-johnston","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=324452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/324452\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/324453"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=324452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=324452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=324452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}