Steve McClaren wants Martin O’Neill to leave Rob Elliot out of Bosnia play-offs

There's no doubt who the most in-form goalkeeper at Martin O'Neill's disposal is.

Rob Elliot was rightly awarded the man-of-the-match award after Newcastle's 1-0 victory at Bournemouth which was the first time this season that the Magpies have kept consecutive clean sheets. Elliot has been lauded by many for his heroic performance against the Cherries and is certainly in the running to start between the sticks when the Republic of Ireland meet Bosnia in their Euro 2016 qualification play-offs next week. But his club manager Steve McClaren doesn't want Elliot to travel with the Irish squad and is hopeful that he will be left out by O'Neill, despite the fact that Shay Given has been ruled out due to injury. "I hope not and I don't think so," McClaren answered when asked if Elliot would be going on international duty. "He's the man in the goal at the moment and we'll wrap him in cotton wool and try to get him out there for the next game.

"When we lost Darlow and Tim Krul, we turned to Rob Elliot. He's been terrific from day one, good around the place, experienced, a good talker and got us three points on Saturday."

We're sure a talking-to from a certain Ireland assistant manager could get McClaren to change his mind.