Seamus Coleman will make a return to the Ireland team as he’s been given a unique ‘hybrid’ role for the next international window next week.

Ireland boss Heimir Hallgrimsson named his 24-man squad in Dublin on Thursday, and welcomed the return of captain Nathan Collins, with the Brentford defender missing the last camp through injury.

QPR midfielder Harvey Vale also returns to the national team after he made his debut against Czechia earlier this year, with the last notable change being Everton’s Mark Travers coming in for Gavin Bazunu, with the Bolton goalkeeper out with a quad injury.

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Ireland’s Nathan Collins celebrates scoring his side’s first goal. Pic: Ryan Byrne/INPHO

However, the most eye-catching part of the squad announcement was Heimir Hallgrimsson announcing that Seamus Coleman will be involved with the squad in an unofficial capacity, having not played for Ireland since the friendly draw against Canada in May.

The 38-year-old fullback is still without a club after leaving Everton over the summer, and recently did punditry for Gary Neville’s The Overlap production and Sky’s Monday Night Football. The Killybegs man has said he wants to continue his career, and Heimir says his inclusion in this camp will help him towards that.

‘Seamus Coleman will be in some kind of hybrid role this camp,’ Hallgrimsson explained. ‘He is going to do the sessions with the players, but he’s going to be in a leadership role and a supportive role with us as coaches.

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Seamus Coleman. Photo by Stephen McCarthy/Sportsfile

‘Hopefully that will get him to start playing again, and that’s our aim to try and push him to continue playing, and he’s expressed that he wants to do that.’

Heimir Hallgrimsson didn’t rule out Coleman potentially playing in this window. ‘Yeah, well, first of all, we need to see where he’s at. He hasn’t done a team training for some period now. So we need to see where he is at.

We have five players on yellow cards, so there might be a suspension for the second game, injury, et cetera… And we have a 24-man squad; that’s why we took 24, because of the yellows.

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Seamus Coleman. Pic: INPHO/Nick Elliott

‘And, knock on wood, nobody gets injured this weekend, because everybody has a game to play. But obviously, given how he did for us without playing much for Everton, it makes us believe that he can always play for the national team and do good, but we’ll have to wait and see.’

Ireland face Austria first on Saturday, November 14, away in Vienna before returning to the Aviva Stadium to face Kosovo on Tuesday, November 17.