World Cup fallout: As news came in yesterday that Roy Keane had decided to retire from international football, the FAI was busily attempting to line up a team to visit Lansdowne Road next month and Brian Kerr was still wondering if there is any chance he might still be in charge of the national side then.

Even before the Dubliner has his fate confirmed by the association's board, however, prospective candidates for his job will have started sizing up what they would have to work with if they took on the task of guiding the Republic of Ireland through the next qualifying campaign.

With some leading figures within Merrion Square said to be cool on David O'Leary and the Dubliner reported to be reluctant to consider the post while there is still life in his club management career, there is wide-ranging speculation on who might succeed Kerr in the event that he is, as expected, shown the door next Wednesday.

Alex Ferguson and Martin O'Neill are the names most commonly bandied around the media although neither are immediately available, and there appears to have been no attempt by the association to ascertain whether either man would be interested, when they might be free to take up the post or what multiple of Kerr's €484,000 salary they would require.

The Manchester United manager is perhaps the marginally less far fetched of the two targets, given he might decide to leave Old Trafford if the club again finishes the season empty handed. The fact that he announced yesterday Keane would be offered a new one-year contract by the club, however, carries the clear implication that Ferguson thinks he will be around too and so at present the Scot might safely be described as a long shot.

O'Neill has previously indicated some level of interest in taking on the job at some point although it's hard to resist the suspicion he was merely being polite to the room full of Irish journalists who asked him about it prior to an FAI awards function a couple of years back.

Having resigned from Celtic to spend more time with his wife as she battles cancer, O'Neill is highly unlikely to fancy even a part-time job while there are bound to be much more attractive opportunities when he decides to re-enter the job market.

The association's chances of recruiting somebody else of real promise appears to depend on a combination of the available financial package and Ireland's chances of emerging from a qualifying campaign with some credit.

On the money front, it is recognised within Merion Square that a larger budget may be required, although it is hoped the post can be made attractive through the use of substantial bonus payments rather than a significantly increased basic salary.

The team's future, however, may prove to be a greater deterrent to those tempted to take on the job. With the Irish dropping to fourth seeds for the Euro 2008 draw, qualification is clearly going to be an uphill task. The scale of the challenge, though, won't even start to become clear until the draw is made in January.

The question of what personnel will be available is also important. Roy Keane's retirement yesterday is clearly a blow given the rather modest options in central midfield. Kenny Cunningham also announced his departure on Wednesday while Matt Holland and Gary Breen are considering their positions.

Neither would be regarded as first choices during the next campaign but both will be viewed as useful squad members given the absence of talented young replacements.

A great deal was expected of Liam Miller during the first half of last year but the midfielder's career has stalled badly with the 24-year-old slipping down the pecking order at Manchester United to the point where, having featured in just two games this season, it looks increasingly likely he will end up having to leave Old Trafford before he is even half way through his five-year contract.

A succession of serious injuries, meanwhile, has threatened to end the career of the other man once widely tipped to become a regular in central midfield, Sunderland's Colin Healy.

In attack, the team remains overly reliant on Robbie Keane whose recent run of poor displays did much to undermine the chances of stealing into the play-offs while Cunningham's departure leaves Andy O'Brien and Richard Dunne looking like automatic starters during the next round of qualifiers with, potentially, Gary Doherty as the next in line for a centre-back berth unless John O'Shea moves inside from left back.

Having endured considerable problems with injury, Steven Reid looks set to enjoy greater opportunities during the next campaign but the manager will have to work hard between now and then on blooding some of the younger players like Stephen Kelly of Spurs, Leicester's Paddy McCarthy and Willo Flood of Manchester City (currently on loan at Coventry City).

Other factors, such as the progress of Stephen Ireland at Manchester City, Darren Potter at Liverpool and Aidan McGeady at Celtic, as well as the amount of first-team football senior players like Robbie Keane get to play at their clubs are simply outside a manager's control.

Speaking last week about the FAI's Emerging Talent Programme which, it is hoped, will help to provide players of real quality further down the line, the association's technical director, Packie Bonner, was adamant that the current situation is not as grim as is sometimes made out.

"Of course there are gaps that you would like to plug," he said, "but the core of this squad is young and experienced. Players of 24, 25, 26 with 50 or 60 caps. I mean, when Jack Charlton took over I was 26 and had nine senior games under my belt.

"These guys are going to be around for quite a while to come and they give us a strong foundation to work on."

Still, it appears the failure to persuade players like Kevin Nolan of Bolton Wanderers and Fulham's Zat Knight to declare for Ireland last year has deprived the Ireland manager of what would have been valuable additions to the squad. Manchester United's Darren Fletcher and Kieran Richardson are amongst the other young players who have decided against opting to play for Ireland in recent years.

Sunderland's Liam Lawrence, however, is set to declare and could feature in the squad as early as next March, but Anton Ferdinand looks certain to follow his brother into the England set-up despite qualifying for the Republic on the basis of an Irish grandmother. Meanwhile, the future intentions of players like Birmingham's Neil Kilkenny and Dave Kitson of Reading remain unclear.

The pace of change is likely to be rather slow and in the meantime there are those, like under-21 manager Don Givens, who feel we simply have to lower our expectations.

"The structures for bringing players through have improved dramatically over the last few years," he says, "and there is a lot of talent in the system but we have to keep our sense of perspective about this.

"We've done well in the past and I'm sure we will again in the future but we can't expect to be qualifying for major championships year in, year out, to be competing on the same level of England, France and Germany because the fact is that we have one tenth of their population and you simply can't defy that sort of numerical disadvantage forever."