Time to take us out of Stan's misery

LockerRoom: For those of us living out our small lives of quiet desperation there's at least one small solace

LockerRoom: For those of us living out our small lives of quiet desperation there's at least one small solace. We have no audience and we have no gallery of critics. Our banal failings and our humdrum failures are our own to fret over and to live with. In a world which never notices us we are spared the incisions from the critic's scalpel. That's a kindness.

Steve Staunton works in a pitiless, well lit world. He chose it for himself. He went from being an assistant manager at Walsall to managing an international soccer team. We don't know how far beyond the business of picking up and laying out training cones his work at Walsall went, but we know this morning that we are watching a man who has tragically overreached himself.

His sponsor in this folly has been John Delaney, whose culpability is deeper because he is cunning enough a man to have known better. If Steve Staunton goes soon, which he should, John Delaney should hold his hand as he walks the plank.

Steve Staunton is guilty of nothing more than ambition which, so far, outstrips his ability. John Delaney brings rather more into the confession box.

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The situation this morning isn't about Brian Kerr, and we are realistic enough to know that nothing which happens in the near future in Irish soccer will restore Kerr to the centrality he has earned and deserves. Let us just remember, however, that in order for the current farrago to take place Brian Kerr had first to be knifed and filleted.

Brian Kerr, whose international teams certainly suffered from the failing of caution but never showed signs of complete dissolution; Brian Kerr, who invested his heart and his soul in the future of soccer in this country; Brian Kerr, who had a vision and a plan for how we might move forward; Brian Kerr, who had given so much service over so many years - Brian Kerr was nobbled and his limp-suited form dragged to the murky wings. Tragedy over. Ta da! Here comes the comedy.

Need we linger on the grim "search for a world-class manager" - as audaciously wielded a bottle of smoke as OJ Simpson's "hunt for the real killers"? In the end, the arcane provisions of the Old Pals Act served to fill the vacancy looking after the Irish team. Steve Staunton was located working humbly at little old Walsall. An FAI limo pulled up kerbside and when the smoked window came down with an impressive purr a man with a quiff leaned out.

"Hey, what's a nice Stan like you doing in a place like this? Let me take you away from all this," said the quiff.

You can't blame Steve Staunton for being bowled over. He arrived a few days later at a press conference in Dublin, blushing like a mail-order bride as he met the media - who wore faces like a set of dubious in-laws. We the media were assured by none other than John Delaney that here in one stroke was the restoration of passion to Irish hearts.

And for those who insisted on looking too closely at Steve Staunton's threadbare CV, well, hey, why not look over there at the kindly, white-haired old man who rambles on a lot. Isn't that Bobby Robson, Sir Bobby to you? Arise, Sir International Football Consultant.

One or other of them must know how to do the job. Steve and Bobby? Mustn't they?

More old pals piled in. If there had been sufficient old pals around Brian Kerr we'd have won the last World Cup apparently. As it was there were so many old pals on board now that we could afford the luxury of not really worrying about Euro 2008 but looking forward to South Africa 2010.

Pick your jaw up off the floor there, Brian Kerr; you know why you had to feel the knife between your shoulder blades. John Delaney told the Daily Mail last January. He'd looked, not into the heart of the nation but into the eyes of the Swiss.

"There was no fear in their eyes," quoth John. "Every Swiss person I spoke to looked confident. There was no fear or intimidation about coming to Lansdowne Road anymore

. . . that wasn't supposed to happen."

Are the Swiss famous for being afraid? Are they bedwetters? It couldn't be left there though. The knife had to be twisted.

"I think the most interesting remark came from Damien Duff," said Delaney, "who said we were playing like a pub team. We were always very difficult to play against, especially at Lansdowne Road. Teams feared us. They hated coming to Dublin but that had gone "

Now then. The Czech Republic visit us on Wednesday night. Can we all head out to the airport to get a close look to see if there is fear in their eyes this Monday morning? Did we have an optician take a look into the steely blues of the Cypriot team this weekend to check if their startled pupils betrayed a quiver of fear when the words Republic of Ireland were mentioned.

5-2. Five goals to two! Beyond our wildest nightmares is what Saturday night in Nicosia was. This was a landmark disaster which took us to the parts of embarrassment excuses can't reach. It was beyond comedy.

There have been calamitous results in the past which could be put down to a bad day at the office; there have been days when we huffed and puffed but couldn't put the ball in the net; there have been days when we got sucker punched by a decent team. But this was 90 minutes of gradual disintegration.

5-2. V Cyprus. We got a goal in the eighth minute and we spent the last 15 minutes being made fools of. The Cypriots could have added two or three at the end but, hey, who can accurately calibrate the different measures of humiliation in conceding five to Cyprus and conceding six or seven?

5-2. We had a back four made up of Premiership footballers and we had a Premiership goalkeeper behind them. We had a right to expect that at least we would set out our stall so as not to concede goals.

Ahead of our defence we had (having mysteriously eschewed the services of a baffled Lee Carsley) an unviable central midfield but also Aiden McGeady, Duff and Robbie Keane. In other words, we had some injury troubles but we had enough talent on the floor to go and do the job.

The evidence of Saturday night (and the absurdly overpraised adventure in Germany and the disturbing evenings against Chile and Holland) is that Steve Staunton has so much to learn that this job may destroy him before he can absorb those lessons. He is a good man who is out of his depth. He must go on grinning and bearing it and providing the ritual cant at press conferences, looking forward to the next match and so on. Somebody needs to take us out of his misery.

It won't be John Delaney who does the job. Delaney has linked his administrative career to Staunton's ability to deliver. The national team has become an instrument of political expediency. This grand tradition we all feel intimately acquainted with and passionate about is a plaything.

Steve Staunton shouldn't be left out there dangling. We are watching a snuff movie and it's horribly uncomfortable. The Irish international soccer team is not a learning tool, not a typewriter with the letters on the keys blacked out, not a flight simulator in which you can make 1,000 bumpy landings. The Irish team represents us and it carries our flag and our hopes.

Wednesday night promises only more horror. Not in an eternity could a manager restore his players' faith in his work after a result like Saturday's. With a few days to play with between Cyprus and Lansdowne the problem for Steve Staunton will be simple: scraping his team's morale up from the floor.

We're on the road to nowhere. Pit-stop needed. Points required. Smart Boy Wanted.