Doesn't even have a licence. Have you seen him on the box? Doesn't have two words to rub together. Just keeps talking about his contract. You couldn't imagine him motivating the lads."

The draw didn't reverse that. It did confuse the picture. Which, in itself, has been welcome to people like me, who carry an affection for Staunton (in my case, partly because he's from my hometown, Dundalk) and who see him as a good guy, a straight hardworking man distinguished by his loyalty to the members of his team and his droll sense of humour. Those who like Staunton see him as a sporting man through and through. It isn't just that he played soccer and played it well. He also played GAA. Team games are his life blood.

In addition, there's the fact that, of all current international managers, with the possible exception of John Toshack, Staunton has a better track record in playing premier league soccer at the highest level in England. He played . . .

and played well . . . for Liverpool, Aston Villa and Coventry. Many of his critics, in playing terms, couldn't lace his boots.

In some areas, he has more going for him than, say, Steve McClaren or Walter Smith in that he has more international caps than any current serving coach/manager in European football.

The problem for Steve Staunton was that his selection as Ireland manager was a leap of faith by the FAI against all expectations, when his only managerial or coaching experience was as assistant coach or some equally servile role with Walsall.

To create the belief that Ireland was getting a world-class manager and then deliver a mid-level operator from a barely-known club amounts to an instant case study in 'How Not To Manage Expectations'.

Partly because of those thwarted expectations, but partly, too, because of the belief held by many fans that Brian Kerr had been shafted, Staunton, from the off, was on the back foot. His first press conference was an epic in anticlimax. He was dull, dour, hesitant and repetitive. Reaction split evenly among sports fans. One half said: "Give him time." One half said: "Oh my God, how could anybody so inarticulate ever pull the lads together into a great team?"

All of which put Staunton into defensive mode. But it got worse. The unexpectedness of his appointment, coupled with the fact that he was to be joined at the hip with another experienced hand . . . Bobby Robson . . . reduced his status to floor level. Staunton was forced to defend himself and explain that he was "the gaffer". In other words: "I really am the boss. Trust me on this." Like yelling "Don't panic!" in a theatre when fire breaks out, this was spectacularly counter-effective.

Stan, as he's affectionately known, was in a uniquely bad position, in public perception terms. He was starting on the wrong foot and putting the other foot in his mouth. Nobody seemed to be helping him handle negatives which had been predictable. Instead, a man whose best friends would not claim was comfortable in front of the lights of the media . . . and who would not claim that competence for himself . . . found himself semi-permanently surrounded by hostile journalists in an interrogative barrage that called for skills he didn't have.

The media . . . particularly Irish and British tabloid sporting media . . . will indulge the flamboyant. The flamboyant give good quotes. They give good soundbites. They make for great pictures. So, even in a negative position, they get something close to a free pass.

Take Kevin Keegan. Keegan got a long honeymoon because of his perceived verve, openness, hail-fellow-well-met boyish enthusiasm. The deficiencies of Van Basten of Holland were glossed for a similar reason; because he'd been a magnificent stylish forward, the media and others made the assumption that his style in play would reflect elsewhere.

Staunton, on the other hand, had been a defender. Dogged. Reliable. All the good things a team needs in a defender, but not necessarily what people want to espouse in a manager.

I don't believe Stan ever understood a fundamental fact of communications, which is that every time you encounter another human being, you're either building or unbuilding a relationship. I believe he felt a responsibility to build a relationship with the media. He was of the school that would say "the results on the field will speak for me and my performance". That's a dangerous thing to say when you've just taken over a team in transition. The short term is inevitably going to be rocky and during that short term you're not going to be able to point to results.

I don't think Staunton took sufficient time to understand the nature of that transition and the positive contribution a strong public image could make to it.

Hence, when there was a traumatic loss in an early friendly with Holland, it was easy for critics to say: "Said he was inexperienced, didn't we?" To have this followed fairly soon thereafter with the humiliation of Cyprus led to a bloodbath so merciless that outsiders, including elements within the British media, were slightly horrified by the unabated misery visited on Staunton.

The problem of Staunton's communication-skills deficit was set in bold relief on the very same weekend when, although Wales, playing at home, suffered a similar humiliation, John Toshack nonetheless emerged almost unscathed in personal terms from the debacle, despite the highly dangerous move of selecting as captain the controversial Craig Bellamy, who was due in court for violent assault.

It was as big a defeat as Staunton's. But Toshack had learned through bitter experience in Real Madrid and elsewhere that disasters are manageable, with the deployment of tools like self-deprecating charm together with accurate analysis of what went wrong.

'Stan' Staunton doesn't do charm.

When things go badly for him, his assets become liabilities. His loyalty, for example, prevents him from exposing players for the clear fault that was theirs. This allows a charge of a lack of planning and strategy to be levelled at him.

The Czech Republic has given him a second chance. That second chance should involve much reflection on what has happened to date. It should result in a radically different attitude to the media.

Staunton must understand the media's needs and how to meet them. He must understand the essential decency at work in most media outlets. He must cop on to the key role of the media in helping to create a positive context around his team.

He has to learn to come to every press conference with interesting points to offer, and develop the capacity to take the initiative and offer them.

He has five or six months to draw breath before the next match. In that time, he can take advice on how to communicate in a crisis. He can learn to handle the media, not manipulatively, but in a way that meets both his own need and theirs.

If he does it right, the media will rise to him and love him. And the infinitely sad picture we saw this week: the picture of an embattled baby-faced man, sick with relief, eyes glistening with tears, repeating the terms of his contract like a defensive mantra, will be replaced by the face of a defender who knows how to do more than defend.