Shane Long

Longs stats are fairly reasonable compared to any other Irish striker bar Keane, his 17 in 82 is comparable to Doyle's 14 in 64, Quinn's 21 in 92, Walters' 14 in 54 etc. He's 7th on our all time list, 10 goals more than McClean and 14 goals better than our next highest scorer available for these games, Duffy. (R Brady has 8)

I think it would be difficult to make a case for him to start given his travails at club level and the fact he hasn't scored for us in 3 years, but I'm not sure about the wisdom of omitting him altogether for Maguire & Hogan in particular. I'd accept McGoldrick is the man in possession, and Robinson has generally impressed for us in his few caps, the other 2 haven't as yet though. 

Presume Maguire & Hogan will get game time V Bulgaria, one or both might even start, but I'd have taken a chance on Long on the bench V the Swiss all the same. That said, his recent struggles mean that it is equally difficult to describe his absence as a huge loss either, and if the 4 forwards picked are going to make an impression for us and have decent careers for us in green, no better time to do it than in this game. 

Personally I'm a fan of if you're not playing at club you don't play for Ireland but we generally ignore that when it comes to our starting 11. 

We always have players who play with their clubs that don't get selected or start and we always have players who get no minutes at club selected or starting for us.

yeah but you any idea why as a professional soccer player that his cholesterol levels are so high?

Isn’t he from Greater Manchester somewhere?