He may still have a crack at spiting his critics by winning a World Cup but the fact that Sven-Goran Eriksson is already history as far as the European Championships is concerned was neatly underlined yesterday in Montreux where the draw for the qualifying stage of the 2008 tournament will take place this morning.

A footnote to the official schedule for the day's event confirmed that the departing England manager would not, after all, be joining the likes of Jurgen Klinsmann, Otto Rehhagel and Luiz Felipe Scolari for the pre-draw press conference.

Steve Staunton's career in international management is, in contrast, only just beginning but the new Ireland manager was not much more forthcoming regarding his preferences yesterday.

In a hotel just 50 metres along the lake front from the conference centre where the draw will take place, one bustling with association officials, television rights agents and former stars from across the continent, the Louthman merely shrugged the matter off when asked to weigh up potential opponents.

"What does it matter?" he asked. "You look at it in terms of maybe one or two tough journeys that you might want to avoid but games . . . ? We'll have to play whoever we're given so we'll just wait and see."

Staunton, as it happens, had a chance meeting with Eriksson as well as John Toshack and Lawrie Sanchez, of Wales and Northern Ireland respectively, en route to the Swiss resort town yesterday and observed with a smile that the Republic might find themselves in a group with the teams managed by all three.

What everybody is certainly agreed on is the desire to avoid Group A with its additional seventh-seeded side. There is simply no upside to a draw that would hand Staunton's players two additional competitive fixtures against lowly-ranked opposition over the campaign, but which would prompt the postponement of at least one lucrative friendly - against the Netherlands in August - while severely restricting the room for manoeuvre when it comes to working out the fixture list.

That will be done over the coming 30 days at a venue to be decided between the officials representing the various associations drawn in Ireland's group. Two years ago it was held in Dublin and John Delaney confirmed that the association would like to host the event again as doing so provides an opportunity to set the agenda, but he conceded that others would be keen to do the same.

Staunton welcomed the fact that there will be no play-offs in this campaign with the top two sides from each group progressing to the finals. "We did okay when I was playing but if the rules had been like this I think we would have been at every finals.

"Instead, you had to go and try to qualify all over again and we were a bit unlucky with some of the teams we drew."

Staunton echoed the comments he made at his first press conference as manager when he suggested that the real target was qualification for the next World Cup in 2010, but added, "hopefully it (the transition period) will go quicker than that and we'll certainly be giving it everything in the Euros. We'll be trying our socks off this time but also gearing towards 2010 with a settled team".

With a view to assessing the up-and-coming talent available to him he will travel to watch the under-21s play in their opening game of the Madeira tournament in a couple of weeks time when Don Givens hopes to be able to field both Aiden McGeady and Stephen Ireland.

On the declarations front, though, he received what would appear to be a bonus yesterday when Reading striker Dave Kitson signalled a dramatic change of heart by confirming he would consider opting for the Republic if formally invited to do so. "I'll have to check it out," said Staunton when asked about the player's apparent U-turn, "but some contact has already taken place. The bottom line, he observed, is that, "anybody who wants to play for Ireland and who can play for Ireland is more than welcome. The more the merrier. We need options."