Top players will quit if Staunton forced out
This was in today's indo. Always a bit wary of journalists using - "a source close to the players" & "a friend of the manager said last night" type of quotes in articles, usually means they made it up.
EXCLUSIVE
DION FANNING
SEVERAL senior Irish players, including captain Robbie Keane, are said to be prepared to quit international football if Steve Staunton loses his job next month.
Staunton will not resign and neither will he be sacked by the FAI before the games at Croke Park in March, but defeat against either Wales or Slovakia and his time as manager will be over.
But the senior players, including Keane and Damien Duff, are believed to have become increasingly disillusioned with the media reaction to every Irish performance and are annoyed by what they deem to be sensationalist coverage of the Irish team.
While all sides agree that defeat at Croke Park will cost Staunton his job, there is a feeling that the Irish job is no longer an attractive one for coaches and the FAI are believed to see few alternatives as manager if Staunton is forced to leave.
While a number of players would have quit international football if Brian Kerr had remained in charge, it seems that others will now consider their position if the campaign takes another turn for the worse over the next two matches.
Staunton has insisted again that he would not have left the job if Ireland had failed to beat San Marino. "Youse are going to have to put up with me, lads, no matter what you write," he told a group of journalists after Wednesday's game, but his time for experimentation with players and, more importantly, results is now at an end.
Staunton also insisted that his side was developing. "Of course we are, have a look at the players that are coming in and gaining experience, we have no choice, that was always going to happen, so there is progress being made."
The absence of any visible signs of this progress has left Staunton's reign on the brink, but the players, who have not performed as they should in key matches for a number of years, believe they are now under siege when they meet up with the Irish squad.
They are said to feel that this coverage is having a negative effect on the team and is in danger of turning into a situation similar to that in England where the national team was booed off last week following a home defeat to Spain.
Bobby Robson - who was hounded by the English press for eight years while he was national manager - is understood to have commented last week that he considers the Irish media to be worse.
"There's a siege mentality with the players at the moment," a source close to the players said yesterday.
"They're frightened to do anything which might make them look bad until you get to a match like the Czech game where it's win or bust."
The atmosphere in the FAI's headquarters at Merrion Square, revitalised under John Delaney, is said to darken when an international approaches and there is increasing anger at some of the coverage.
The players were particularly annoyed at the appearance of a newspaper employee dressed as Miss Piggy who showed up at training following the Cyprus games and succeeded in being photographed with some of the players.
Staunton, meanwhile, is believed to feel he is under extra pressure because of Delaney's "world-class" appointment comment, made after Kerr left the job.
While Delaney has justified this again last week by saying he promised a world-class management team, Staunton fears it has increased the pressure.
"Stan didn't say it, but it's being used as a stick to beat him with," a friend of the manager said last night.
Results are all that matter for Steve Staunton now.
