Ireland boss Mick McCarthy was thrown into a goalkeeping crisis yesterday with the news that Shay Given has been withdrawn from the squad to face Portugal and Estonia.

Given is out and, more than likely, so is Alan Kelly - which leaves the Irish squad with just one goalkeeper for the games.

Given is currently playing through the pain barrier for his club, Newcastle. Manager Bobby Robson insists he needs the Donegal man for Saturday's match against Manchester City at Maine Road - but then plans to rest him for at least two weeks.

Robson said: "Shay has had a thigh strain for the past two weeks. But we will be patching him up and sending him out against Manchester City on Saturday.

"Then he needs two weeks of solid treatment, rest and recovery to get back to being 100 per cent. He is not 100 per cent fit at the moment and we will be informing the FAI about this."

Alan Kelly is suffering from the very same injury as Given, forcing him to miss Blackburn's last two games. Blackburn manager Graeme Souness expects to be without the services of the Irish No.1 for at least a month, which does not bode well for the Irish.

If both players miss out it will catapult Charlton's Dean Kiely into a starting place against the Portuguese. Kiely is well capable of playing in the game - but who will McCarthy call up as cover for him?

Hibernian's Nicky Colgan is his only real choice as he is the only other Irish goalkeeper playing top-flight football week in, week out.

The most experienced goalkeeper is Keith Branagan who has one senior cap for Ireland - but Branagan, who is at the moment on the books at Ipswich, cannot even get a reserve game for his club.

Alan Kelly's brother, Gary, still has ambitions of playing for Ireland - but playing football in the English Second Division with a bad team like Oldham and conceding goals every week does not leave him with much hope.

The last option is to bring one of the Irish u21 goalkeepers up a level - but even this does not seem a viable option because neither Joe Murphy of Tranmere nor Dean Delaney of Port Vale has played a game so far this season for his club.