Burnley's internationals are set for Euro action

Last updated : 23 August 2006 By Tony Scholes
Kyle Lafferty - looking for his first start
International week is coming up, meaning there will be no Championship fixtures a week on Saturday but our three Northern Ireland internationals will all be hoping they are in the action at Windsor Park, Belfast as the qualifiers for Euro 2008, to be held in Austria and Switzerland, get underway.

A week on Saturday the Irish will play their first home game against Iceland and four days later Group F favourites Spain will be the visitors to Belfast.

None of the three started in last week's friendly in Finland but they all got on from the bench. It is expected that they will all be subs again for these games although the most likely to get a start is Kyle Lafferty who came on for James Quinn in Finland and got the second goal in the 2-1 win. For Kyle, should he feature in either game, or both, it will be his first competitive action at this level after making three appearances in friendly internationals.

The full Northern Ireland squad is: Maik Taylor (Birmingham), Roy Carroll (West Ham), Michael Ingham (Wrexham), Tony Capaldi (Plymouth), Stephen Craigan (Motherwell), Chris Baird (Southampton), Aaron Hughes (Aston Villa), Michael Duff (Burnley), Gareth McAuley (Leicester), Grant McCann (Cheltenham), Steve Davis (Aston Villa), Stuart Elliott (Hull), Ivan Sproule (Hibs), Keith Gillespie (Sheffield Utd), Sammy Clingan (Nottm Forest), Chris Brunt (Sheffield Wed), Warren Feeney (Luton), James Quinn (Northampton), David Healy (Leeds), Kyle Lafferty (Burnley), Steve Jones (Burnley).

Meanwhile Danny Coyne has been left out of the Wales squad due to lack of action this season. Presumably John Toshack has now noticed that our goalkeeper is not fit and is still recovering from a cruciate ligament injury.