Aaron Connolly is a doubt for Republic of Ireland as they prepare to face Luxembourg in their World Cup Qualifier tonight (7:45pm, Sky Sports).

The 21-year-old went off injured 67 minutes into their 3-2 defeat to Serbia on Wednesday.

Yesterday afternoon, the Football Association of Ireland (FAI) tweeted out a picture of Connolly with the accompanying message: “Striker Aaron Connolly has been ruled out of the matches against Luxembourg and Qatar through injury.

“Connolly came off in the defeat to Serbia and will now return to his club.”

Albion striker suffers injury on international duty with Ireland

But in his pre-match press conference later that afternoon, Ireland manager Stephen Kenny revealed that the striker had not been ruled out of the game at the Aviva Stadium.

However, he admitted that Connolly was ‘up against it’ to be fit.

He said: “Aaron is very doubtful with a foot injury, it is an impact injury, so he is struggling at the moment, but we will have to see how he is.

“We will have to wait and see how he goes, but he is certainly up against it.”

The FAI tweet was later deleted although the suspicion Connolly will not be involved then increased when he posted an Instagram story yesterday of himself on Brighton seafront:

The Argus:

If Connolly does not feature, Albion will be hoping the injury is nothing serious.

He had missed their last three matches before the break after suffering a cracked rib.