Barbara, Mifsud withdrawals foil Heese's plans

Horst Heese yesterday said he is facing a shortage of strikers for Wednesday's friendly against Northern Ireland at the National Stadium after the withdrawal from the squad through injury of Michael Mifsud and Etienne Barbara.

In the provisional 19-man squad, Heese's only forward in the group is Andrew Cohen, of Hibernians.

Orosco Anonam and Ivan Woods, who play an attacking role for Sliema Wanderers in the Premier League, are deployed in midfield by the German coach.

Despite a lack of strike power in the squad, Heese said that if Anonam and Woods are in the team, they will retain their place in midfield. The 5-4-1 module will now be applied.

"We're in a bad position in attack," he said. "Mifsud had shoulder surgery this week and will be out for more than two months. Barbara strained ligaments in a league match and is out for 10 days.

"We had to reshuffle our plans. Now we have decided to play one striker. It's a pity that Barbara had to suffer injury because he would have started the match. He's playing well at the moment and we expect him to recover soon."

Heese will trim his squad to 18 players during the weekend. He is expecting a tough game on Wednesday. He still reckons the test will be a useful one for the players even though the Irish have totally different characteristics from Hungary and Croatia, Malta's next opponents in the World Cup qualifiers.

"There's always something to learn from international matches," he said.

"Contrary to the domestic league, the players have to work hard for 90 minutes. That's a good exercise to improve our stamina and endurance."

U-21 coach Mark Miller is looking at the team's trip to Wales as a mini-training camp which culminates with the match on Tuesday at the Stenbonheath Park, Llanelli.

Miller has a full squad at his disposal but will wait until the last minute to decide on his list of players to travel to Wales tomorrow.