With an international break comes a decent rest for many of our players. However, with Premier League loan signings and more and more of our players impressing as we push for promotion we do have a few more international call-ups than normal.

Ramon Nunez has been on fire for the reserves though has had limited first team playing time. Nevertheless, after being named MVP in Honduras’ Copa Centro America triumph, he has again been called up to the international squad for games away against China on Friday 25th March and South Korea on Tuesday 29th March.

Neil Kilkenny, after featuring briefly for Australia in the Asia Cup, will be hoping for more game time against Germany in Monchengladbach on the 29th. He’ll be looking to do better than the Australia side that got turned over 4-0 by the Germans in the World Cup.

Davide Somma will be returning home to Johannesburg for a match against Egypt on Saturday 26th. If he plays it’ll be his third cap and he’ll be hoping to add to the goal he scored on his last call up against Kenya in February.

Also Africa bound is winger Max Gradel whose recent performances have earned him a call-up to the Ivory Coast squad for their match against Benin. He has been called up to the squad before but is yet to receive his first cap.

Scottish duo Robert Snodgrass and Barry Bannan are set to pit themselves against Brazil at the Emirates on Sunday 27th March. Snoddy earned his first cap coming off the bench against Northern Ireland last month while Bannan, on loan from Aston Villa, has featured for Scotland twice previously.

Also on loan from Villa, Eric Lichaj has received a late call-up to the USA squad ahead of their games against Paraguay and Argentina on the 26th and 29th.

Simon Grayson has commented on how these call-ups are good for the players and the club. We wish them all the best and hopefully they’ll taste some success and remain injury free. We’ll report back on how they’ve done next week.