Cyprus boss has his say on Staunton

It's difficult to be sure about which was his finest line in that unforgettable post-match press conference at Nicosia's GSP stadium last year: the one about us having just witnessed a game "nobody" could have failed to enjoy or his suggestion that he had seen it all coming and told his players that if they played well they would beat Ireland, "very easily". But this time there were no doubts.

Cyprus manager Angelos Anastasiadis was asked yesterday whether he had been surprised that Steve Staunton had kept his job after the 5-2 defeat suffered by his side last October. "It would have been much more difficult to have the same coach in Greece or in Cyprus after that game," the coach dryly observed. "But in Ireland, it is not as difficult to stay after such a defeat."

This came through a translator, who may have been sparing our feelings by withholding the more damning stuff. It was the manager's only press conference in Dublin and who knows what he was saying when the Irish weren't around?

"There's no such thing as an easy game in international football these days," perhaps. How about, "they'll be better organised at the back this time. Or, "their pride will be hurt and they're bound to get bodies behind the ball in the hope of getting a draw in front of their own crowd".

There was, perhaps, just the merest hint of the last one with Anastasiadis conceding that coming to Dublin is a rather different prospect to taking on a side like Ireland in Nicosia. The Cypriots, having drawn with Germany, and beaten the Welsh there last weekend, don't seem to fear anyone in their own capital anymore but their coach, a former Greek international, accepts there is more work to be done on their away performances.

"We are working on this and we believe we can solve this problem in the future," he said.

That's the distant future, we trust you mean there Angelos, the distant future. After all, there's only so much of this funny stuff you can expect us to take in good humour.

The 55-year-old wore black from head to toe that dismal night for the Irish in Nicosia because he was still "in mourning" after a hefty defeat by Slovakia a month earlier. After somebody asked him yesterday what he might wear to a game so soon after a good win over Wales, he generated considerable laughter among his fellow countrymen with a reply that may just have lost something on the way to becoming "probably a tracksuit" in English.

He has, we are not sorry to report, injury problems with Michael Constantinou, who scored two against Ireland last time out and really should have had at least as many again, unfit to travel this time.

However, with both of the Republic's goalscorers from that game - Richard Dunne and Stephen Ireland - also out the omission of the striker may just be a gesture, the result of an understated sense of fair play towards a once-proud footballing nation that could do without taking another kicking just now by the manager of a country we probably liked a whole lot more when we were the ones winning the games and doing the patronising.