"I respected him a lot as a player and I know he will have that same respect in his new position, " the Spurs stand-in skipper told the Sunday Tribune.

And while he accepted that there will always be disquiet at the time of change he said the main thing now was to get the squad into the frame of mind to qualify for the 2008 European Championships.

"I hope the fans get behind Steve and Bobby Robson because having missed out on the World Cup in Germany this summer, everyone wants to make sure we qualify for the Euro finals in two years time."

Keane, the Republic's record goal scorer on 25 goals, said he wasn't worried about Staunton's lack of front-line managerial experience. "He has played for the Republic over a hundred times, he has played in big clubs under managers like Kenny Dalglish and Ron Atkinson so I've no doubt he has a huge amount of knowledge.

"I know when we played together for Ireland, he would often pick out something in my game and tell me how to improve it. I've seen him do that with several players in that quiet way of his, which is why he would be very respected in the squad."

On the appointment of Bobby Robson to the role of International Consultant, Keane felt it would be a help.

"Bobby has won major trophies, has been an international manager for England and is enthusiastic about football still. I would think that having him around would be a help because the sort of knowledge he has across the game is not easily found."

The Republic face into the Euro draw for 2008 later this month as fourth seeds, but that is not as bad as it seems because instead of more groups with smaller numbers of teams, this draw will have groups containing seven or eight teams.

"Qualifying for any tournament is never easy as we saw this year, but I would hope that we will be up for the next campaign. After all we qualified for the 2002 World Cup finals out of a group containing Portugal and Holland and let's hope we can do that again. No one gave us a chance when that draw was made, but we came through."