Dara O’Shea suffers nasty injury during Portugal v Republic of Ireland
West Brom could be left sweating over the fitness of Dara O’Shea after he appeared to suffer a nasty injury while on international duty on Wednesday night.
Portugal and the Republic of Ireland faced off in the opening round of their World Cup qualifiers, and Diogo Jota tackled the 22-year-old from behind.
Despite O’Shea’s best efforts, he could not continue the game, making way for Andrew Omobamidele 10 minutes before half-time.
Birmingham Live journalist Joe Chapman was concerned like a lot of West Brom fans after the incident, taking to his personal Twitter account to react.
He posted: “Fingers crossed this isn’t too bad.
“Dara has been about Albion’s best player so far this season.”
Prior to that moment, Portuguese talisman Cristiano Ronaldo was not pleased with O’Shea tampering with the position of the ball ahead of a penalty, and as shared by Mun Today clips on Twitter, the Manchester United legend mildly struck the defender on the face.
Blow?
Valerien Ismael cannot afford to be without one of his best players right now, and the Frenchman will be hoping that the injury is not as serious as it appeared.
O’Shea has played in every minute of the Championship campaign so far, weighing in with two goals at the other end and has put in impressive performances every game.
The tackle seems bad in slow motion, but the fact that he had to pull out is frightening.
Shockingly, neither Ronaldo nor his Portuguese teammate was booked for their foul on the Baggies ace, but VAR would have very well seen to both incidents had it been a Premier League game.
Ireland took a shock 1-0 lead heading into half-time after Ronaldo’s penalty was saved, but things could change given the number of attacking talents in the side.
West Brom will be truly hoping that the international break injury curse has not struck, and Ireland will definitely be hoping to have him back for the other qualifiers.
O’Shea could be celebrating Premier League promotion and a World Cup berth if everything goes his way, but he needs to be fit to achieve those dreams.
In other West Brom news, Joseph Masi couldn’t believe what an Albion fan did in 1-0 win v Peterborough.
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