Mick McCarthy's search for sustenance in the approach to Saturday's World Cup play-off against Belgium in Brussels, centred on a familiar figure at the squad's base in Dublin yesterday. Ray Houghton, a name synonymous with some of the great moments in Irish sport in the last 10 years, is struggling with a weak ankle in the countdown to Ireland's biggest game since the Anfield confrontation with Holland in December 1995.

Yet, if the manager is seriously worried about an injury which kept the midfielder out of Reading's starting line up for the meeting with Stockport County last Saturday, he did an admirable job in disguising it.

"It was decided that Ray should not train today, purely to avoid the risk of getting another knock on his ankle. At this point, there is no real cause for concern - he is definitely coming with us to Brussels on Thursday morning."

Houghton was equally upbeat. "It's a problem I've had for a couple of weeks now but I'm not losing any sleep over it," he said. "This is a huge match for everybody and I want to be part of it."

That player and manager should be as one, on the day's biggest 0topic of conversation in the Irish camp, was scarcely surprising. Houghton has to be on the winning side on Saturday if he hopes to extend his Ireland career into the New Year.

And McCarthy, looking around with increasing anxiety for probable rally points in the King Baudouin Stadium, tends to stop at the little midfield player whose eclipse in the first instalment of the tie, contributed so significantly, to Ireland's problems on the day.

That ineffective performance, it must be conceded, has to be set against the quality of Franky Van Der Elst's performance in the anchor role in midfield for Belgium. Yet, McCarthy and Houghton must somehow, devise a means of reversing the outcome of this pivotal duel on Saturday.

On the success of that challenge, may depend much. Equally important, one suspects, will be the corresponding duel in the other half of the pitch. Ken Cunningham and Ian Harte were unfairly criticised for their performance in central defence on that occasion when the finger might have been pointed, more appropriately, at those in front of them.

Steve Staunton's performance in the holding role in midfield in the opening half hour, was less than competent and significantly, the Aston Villa player was posted to more familiar surrounds at left back when McCarthy chose to work with 11 of the players, leaving his assistant Ian Evans to look after the rest at one of yesterday's training sessions.

The manner in which the manager deploys his resources on these occasions, can often proven enlightening and it may be significant that Mark Kennedy kept his role on the left side of midfield with Gary Kelly on the other flank, in what loosely conformed to a 4-5-1 formation.

Significantly, Lee Carsley was now stationed in front of the two centre backs with Tony Cascarino, rather than David Connolly, leading the attack. Connolly's impressive response when assigned this role in the game in Romania in April, suggests that he has credible claims to keep the job if McCarthy opts to go with the same system in Brussels and to that extent, the formation he uses in training today, will be watched with interest.

Steve Carr, summoned from Tottenham on Monday, to fill one of one gaps occasioned by the withdrawal of Denis Irwin and Curtis Fleming, arrived too late to participate in the first of yesterday's two sessions. Cunningham, who was in action for Wimbledon at Leicester on Monday evening, did make it to Dublin yesterday morning, extracting still further praise from a manager who has never been reluctant to praise his professional qualities.

In between the two sessions at Clonshaugh, McCarthy took time to meet the press and attempt yet again, to place the burden of favouritism still more firmly on the Belgians. Several hundreds of miles away, his Belgian counterpart, Georges Leekens was attempting the exercise in reverse as the mind games gathered pace.

"The situation is clear enough from where I stand," said McCarthy. "After the result in Dublin, we go into the return, knowing that we can only win it, Belgium realise that they can only lose it. And that generates extra pressures."

That type of psychology tends to go over the heads of the less engrossed but the message was clear enough when the manager dwelt at some length on the pressures generated by the team's supporters, 9,000 of whom are expected in Brussels on Saturday.

"We have the best supporters in the world but sometimes we find ourselves caught between stools, between the way we normally play and the way we're expected to play. In home games, in particular, we're expected to knock long balls into the penalty area and take it from there. But as I've said so often since taking the job, that's not the way I want the team to play. And it's not the type of football which is likely to get us a good result in Brussels."

Never a man to dwell too much on the strengths of the opposition, McCarthy forsook his usual priorities when asked to comment on the omission of Gilles De Bilde from the Belgium team.

"I can't say I'm sorry about that for when I watched De Bilde play alongside Luc Nilis for PSV Eindhoven against Newcastle United recently, they were as near as you're likely to get to the ideal strike force."

Pointedly, nobody saw fit to throw the name of Luis Oliveira into the discussion. That, it seems, is a problem to be confronted on another day!

Meanwhile, Leinster boss Martin O'Neill has questioned plans for Northern Ireland to appoint a part-time manager.