ANOTHER dispiriting Irish display, and more calls for Steve Staunton's head. But let's not be too hasty.

First of all, as poor as Wednesday was, it must be pointed out that Ireland's tabloid sports coverage is getting nearly as bad as England's. It's all got extremely stupid, sensationalistic and reactionary and does Irish football no good at all. That only adds to Steve's problems in a difficult situation that wasn't entirely of his creation. The fact is, he is a very inexperienced manager who has inherited a poor outfit of players short on confidence after the Brian Kerr regime. John Delaney will ultimately have to take responsibility for that.

After Kerr's departure, Ireland needed an experienced manager, but they didn't have the budget. I wouldn't listen to any argument telling me otherwise. The FAI didn't have the funds to secure Delaney's "worldclass manager", but tried to justify Staunton's appointment by bringing in Bobby Robson in an advisory capacity. I had my doubts about that from the outset because I felt it was cosmetic and done just to cover Staunton's lack of experience.

That was Delaney's baby, I'm sure about that, although the FAI would probably say it was a unanimous decision by the Council. And after the barrage of criticism they're probably wobbling, so for that reason, Staunton's position must be in the balance. But I would say they should hold their nerve. After all, what are the FAI going to replace him with;

what plan have they got?

We've seen bottom-three teams in the Premiership jettison a manager because of media criticism, thinking that will change results but it doesn't always work that way. The FAI should keep Staunton on until the end of this qualifying campaign, see where we finish and then decide accordingly. He should be given the chance to take the team to Croke Park and win three points against Wales - which the Czech game showed he is capable of doing.

Staunton's appointment was always going to be a long shot but, on the one hand, you could see where Delaney was coming from. I am sure he was hoping Steve would have a similar effect as Mark Hughes with the Welsh job a few years back. Like Staunton, Hughes virtually moved straight into the job from an enormously respected international playing career, presiding over a squad similar in quality to the current Irish side. He then demonstrated he was very capable.

Right, he didn't qualify for any major finals but he showed he was able to motivate the players and renew their enthusiasm after Bobby Gould's tenure. He was sought after by a number of clubs and went on to prove himself a fine manager of Blackburn Rovers.

The same could be said of Marco van Basten with the Dutch job.

He showed he has the mettle to handle big players and has created a new team. We saw that to great effect in Dublin.

So, you can see where Delaney got his strategy from, but he should have said that from the start, rather than this business about "world-class management". The figurehead of Robson residing in the background was always a whitewash to me. We never had the budget to get anyone at the top of his profession, Delaney took a chance on Staunton and while that has so far proved a mistake, the full evidence hasn't been presented yet.

This was supposed to be a four-year plan where Staunton would gain experience. That's all very well if he has hardened people around him and his top players are performing but that clearly isn't the case. Robson has been largely absent, the coaching staff have done little work at first-team level and, above all, several players - bar Shay Given - have been underperforming. The San Marino game really showed that.

I don't think we've ever been good when we've had to break down teams who are content to just sit back.

That goes right back to Jack Charlton's time - I remember when we barely beat Luxembourg 2-1 qualifying for Euro '88. But you need your flair players to step up in that situation and, at the moment, Staunton has inherited a Damien Duff (below) who is quite blatantly struggling to do anything at international level, and even club level.

Only a few seasons ago, maybe just before his move to Chelsea, Duff was in the headlines every week about the goals he was scoring and creativity of his play. But Staunton hasn't seen that player and it's been a major factor. I can't put my finger on why he's not the player he was, maybe he needs to find out himself and really dig deep. The only thing I can think of is that he's probably put on too much muscle up top, and that's not exactly what he needs. His attributes were always to go past people with speed and agility and he's lost a bit of that.

Staunton hasn't yet had an onform Robbie Keane either. And the rest of the squad? They're Premiership players, but not with any regularity. None of them, apart from Steve Finnan and John O'Shea, feature for the top teams and O'Shea does so infrequently. One of the few performing, Kevin Doyle, was injured and we had to replace him with somebody getting their first cap. We can't then be relying on young, inexperienced players. It's not fair.

So, I think the FAI would be foolish to make a change now. As I've said here before, it's not going to make any difference to qualification, we're not going to get to Euro 2008. I just want to see the manager is capable of the job through his handling of the remaining matches, showing development and giving us something to look forward to for the World Cup 2010 campaign. Let's wait until the end, when we can at least see where we finish and on what points.

I don't think the Irish public have turned against Staunton to the extent the media are making out.

I've been in that position before and when things get hairy it's not very nice. We all know the score when we go into the job, but it's getting even worse with the tabloid newspapers.

Staunton's got to go and rescue that situation now by being strong and demonstrating the players can have confidence in him. He got a lifeline on Wednesday. He now has to show he knows how to stay afloat.