Darren Randolph says he's gutted to have to sit out the Republic of Ireland's upcoming World Cup qualifiers.
The experienced West Ham goalkeeper will miss the matches against Serbia and Luxembourg as he continues to recover from a long-standing hip injury.
"I'm dealing with it since last March, it's coming up to about a year now that I've been trying to manage it," the Wicklow man said on Saturday's Off The Ball.
"I was getting to a certain point and would then would break down and need a few weeks off and then come back and it would break down again.
"It finally got to the stage where I needed to just rest it completely. Unfortunately, the three games are coming around too quickly.
"I'll probably be just getting back to full training on the week of the games and then having three games in nine days, it would have been too much.
"I don't want to go back two or three steps in the rehab process, I want to get over it and put it past me. I've been getting about 20 minutes of training in and then it's straight to the ice bath and recovery."
Ireland boss Stephen Kenny called up Caoimhín Kelleher, Gavin Bazunu, Mark Travers and Kieran O'Hara as his goalkeeping options this week and Randolph says any of the 'young pups' are ready to step up.
"I spoke to Caoimhín last week to check up on his injury and he said he'd be 'touch and go' to make the squad but he's in the squad with the four young pups named.
"Whoever Stephen goes with, they'll do a brilliant job."
