Noel King may look to Anthony Stokes and Darron Gibson

As the prospect of Martin O'Neill succeeding Giovanni Trapattoni appears to recede, interim manager Noel King has suggested he may well recall the likes of Darron Gibson, Stephen Ireland and Anthony Stokes on Monday, when he names an extended squad for the games against Germany and Kazakhstan.

There has been no real indication of how O’Neill, a virtually unbackable favourite for the job a week ago, views the FAI’s decision to entrust Ray Houghton and Ruud Dokter with the task of exploring its other options before making a decision, but it is hard to imagine how the 61 year-old can feel encouraged.

It is known he was interested in the job and that he was effectively the association’s preferred candidate. It is believed, however, that as of Monday he had not been formally contacted and so it seems that the decision to broaden the search was made on the basis of informal discussions with third parties regarding the former Celtic and Sunderland boss’s record and management style.

Having been tipped so publically, by the likes of Mick McCarthy as well the media, O’Neill, unless he has been told differently, might well feel that the decision to go for the longer, larger selection process suggests the association have had a look and not been sufficiently taken with that they have seen.

If that is the case, it may be that his own enthusiasm for remaining in the race will be undermined.

King, meanwhile, has been fully embracing his crack at the senior role, watching Fulham against Everton last night before heading to Liverpool today where he plans to take in Tranmere against Stoke City.

The former women’s and under-21 international team manager says he is delighted with the opportunity he has been given and insists he will start from scratch when he sits down to put together his squad over the coming days.

“I’d have no reason to block anybody out,” he says. “As far as I’m concerned I’m starting from a clean slate. It’s my view of what should constitute the squad of 30 odd players that we’ll put on standby (on Friday, when clubs have to be notified), then the 23 that we’ll call-up and from there what the starting 11 should be. Through injury and unavailability we may well lose some players but nobody will be excluded by me....why would I exclude anybody?”

Stokes, with whom he worked well at under-21 level, and Gibson seem likely to feature while Ireland remains more of a long-shot given the extent to which he burned his bridges and the uncertainty he expressed even last week regarding a possible return.

More interesting, perhaps, is what King decides to do with Robbie Brady who could make a significant contribution for the under-21s in their important qualifying games against Romania. The manager may well feel that the young Dubliner could contribute for the seniors but he knows well what it's like to be in Harry McCue's shoes and watch the likes of Brady and James McCarthy called up by Trapattoni but then not used. He declined to comment on the Hull City player yesterday.

King appears to be completely in the dark as regards the FAI’s recruitment process, although his assistant for the games in Germany, as it happens, is at its heart.

“As things stand Ruud Dokter will assist me for these games,” he acknowledges, “but I haven’t spoken to everybody in the coaching set-up. I don’t think there’ll be any changes to the existing current coaching set-up.”

Pressed on whether he expects to be picking the squad for the yet to be announced November friendlies, the former Shamrock Rovers, Dundalk and Limerick City player, says that that was not the brief as he received it.

“It’s the Germany and Kazakhstan games as far as I’ve been told,” he says, “and I’m delighted to be given that responsibility.”

The news, he says, was not entirely unexpected given that his long time predecessor in the under-21 job, Don Givens, stepped up to the senior job a couple of times.

“I was out for a jog and when I came back I saw that I had a number of missed calls from various people within the FAI management,” he says. “The news came as a pleasant surprise. But it’s fair to say that anybody who has been involved in management at various levels wants to go ahead in their career. When I was coaching schoolboy teams I wanted to keep progressing and I moved from there onto the League of Ireland level. When I worked with ladies international teams I was delighted to get the opportunity to move on then to coach the under-21 men’s team. It’s logical that you want to progress through the levels as a manager so it was something I was aware might be a possibility.”