Givens to be in charge for Brazil

Though he is hopeful an appointment can be made before Ireland's game against Brazil on Wednesday week, Don Givens has said the FAI's recruitment panel still has "three or four" interviews to conduct before they can get down to the business of recommending a successor to Steve Staunton as manager of the senior national team.

Givens said he expects to be in charge against Brazil because it would be "unfair" to expect the new man to take over a squad that he had not named.

He said, however, that the interviews conducted to date had gone well and that there had been a broad consensus within the committee over who had done well.

"I think when the time comes there won't be a lot of difference between us," he said yesterday. "Once we've talked to everyone I don't think it will take long to sort out, because we've generally been along the same lines.

"After that I would expect it (the recommendation) to be accepted by the board, because otherwise there wouldn't be a whole lot of point in having us go around meeting people in the first place."

After reports suggesting that the 1 million or so on offer would not be enough to entice either Terry Venables or Gerard Houllier, the former international dismissed suggestions that money had become a significant issue with any of the candidates.

"In every interview, the financial package has been mentioned and there hasn't been a problem . . . the interviews have all still gone well."

He again accepted that criticism of how long the entire process has taken is inevitable, but, he said, "I'd ask people to accept that we're making every effort to get the best man in place.

"We have three or four more interviews to do and we'll try to get it done as quickly as we possibly can without cutting corners."

Speculation persists that former England manager Venables, Houllier and Liam Brady are the leading contenders for the position, but a French Federation spokesman has described as "rubbish" the suggestion that the former Liverpool boss might leave his current position with the association to take over as Ireland manager.

Meanwhile, Darron Gibson and Andy Keogh return to the Irish under-21 squad for next month's European Championship qualifier against England in Southampton.

The pair made their senior international debuts last year, but are included in the travelling party for the competitive game as the Irish look to make amends for a 3-0 defeat by the English in October.

"The scoreline in that game was harsh," said Givens.

"We were beaten 2-0 by Portugal, who were miles better than us, but England weren't miles better than us. We made some mistakes and conceded early goals, but over the 90 minutes I thought we deserved something from it.

"This will be tough again because it's a good England team," he continued, "but I don't think we'll do too badly."

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND UNDER-21 SQUAD (v England): Randolph (Charlton Athletic), Supple (Ipswich Town), Nolan (Blackburn Rovers), Keogh (Bristol City), O'Cearuill (Barnet), O'Dea (Celtic), O'Halloran (Southampton), Dennehy (Everton), Quinn (Sheffield United), Gibson (Wolves), Garvan (Ipswich Town), O'Brien (Celtic), O'Toole (Watford), Stokes (Sunderland), Treacy (Blackburn Rovers), Rooney (Chesterfield), Keogh (Wolves), Clarke (Ipswich Town).