Staunton discovering a steep learning curve

Emmet Malone On Soccer: Word has it that Steve Staunton's mother was in the team hotel on Saturday night lamenting the display of sideline petulance that prompted the Spanish referee of the Republic of Ireland's defeat by Germany to send her son to the stand.

The Ireland manager's employer, however, could be excused for having somewhat stronger feelings regarding their new man's behaviour in Stuttgart.

With just four games played and the record not nearly as poor as the two draws and six defeats managed by Mick McCarthy in his first eight games, the new regime clearly deserves more time to prove itself. Still, those senior FAI officials who sold Staunton's appointment in January as anything approximating to the recruitment of the "world class manager" they had committed themselves to hiring when Brian Kerr was shown the door could certainly do with the Dundalkman being seen to make swift progress as he wrestles with the task be has been handed.

The fact that he is certain to have to watch the Cyprus game from the stand and that Thursday's Uefa disciplinary committee might well extend the punishment to include the Czech game in Dublin four days later is not, in the circumstances, helpful to their cause.

Neither is the fact Staunton, when asked afterwards about the prospect of being banished from the dugout, openly suggested it would mean he could calmly watch the game from the stand while staying in regular contact with his assistants on the bench.

The fact is such bans almost always include a prohibition on any contact with players or technical staff from two hours before the kick-off until after the final whistle and that's a prospect that must surely concern Staunton ahead of two important qualification games.

It is not, as it happens, the first time the new manager has surprised journalists with his answers to rather routine queries in press conferences. A few weeks back considerable confusion was caused when he said he had had Gary Doherty and Paddy McCarthy watched as they played against each other for Norwich City and Leicester City respectively the previous weekend. The report he received back on the game, he said, confirmed his view that Doherty remained ahead of his fellow centre half in the international pecking order. As it happened, the two teams have not yet played each other this season.

Then there was his insistence, when revealing that Alan O'Brien had been called up after Pat Devlin had returned from Newcastle with a positive report on the young midfielder's form in pre-season games, that he had been entirely unaware of Devlin's role in the player's move to Tyneside a few years back. Given his closeness to the former Bray Wanderers manager it was a somewhat surprising admission.

Whatever about his mishaps to date, however, Saturday night was a reasonable enough one for the new manager, particularly after his team's hapless performance against the Dutch.

The team looked much better motivated and organised than it did at Lansdowne Road and it coped as well as might have been expected against a German side that was essentially the same one that did so well at the World Cup.

Despite criticism of the team he picked, Staunton did well enough on this front too, given the options available to him. The line-up on his bench, though, was much more surprising than his starting 11 with the likes of O'Brien and Sean St Ledger handed jerseys at the expense of more experienced internationals like Graham Kavanagh, Gary Doherty and Clinton Morrison.

Staunton's explanation afterwards was that neither Morrison nor Kavanagh had enough club football under their belts this season to warrant inclusion while St Ledger could cover at either centre back or full back. But O'Brien, Liam Miller and Jonathan Douglas had all been left languishing on the sidelines by their clubs since the start of the league while Doherty offered a fallback option in attack if, as it turned out, his team were chasing the game.

O'Brien, indeed, was the only Premiership player among the substitutes in Stuttgart while Staunton left Andy Reid and Lee Carsley at home despite the pair having played - and played well - for their clubs in recent weeks. A handful of others from the top two divisions, several of whom got their international careers started under Kerr, were simply overlooked.

The new manager, of course, is entitled to call it as he sees fit but the bench he picked for this, his first competitive game in charge, left him chronically short of either experience or options late on as Ireland should have been seeking to steal something from the game. Staunton made like for like swaps at a time when his side were manifestly failing to pose any threat to Jens Lehmann's goal and replaced Kevin Doyle when the striker still looked very lively and confident. Ultimately Ireland were beaten without much more than a whimper.

Some of the criticism aimed at Staunton since has seemed excessive but then the manager does not do himself many favours with his absurdly upbeat assessments of games. He wants to come across as supportive of his players but Staunton has consistently attempted to portray the second-half display against Holland as hugely positive when it was merely less disastrous than what had gone on before the break. His claim that Ireland dominated and "frightened" the Germans during the first 45 minutes was similarly excessive.

His reviews of the performances against Cyprus and the Czech Republic next month will be a lot less important than the results achieved in those games for Stuttgart will hopefully prove to be the only place in this campaign where a plucky but largely one-sided defeat could be deemed progress.

It may also prove to be the only occasion between now and the end of next year when his best players are all available for selection. How he copes the next time he is short-handed is just one of the many tests that lie ahead. But it will at least help if he gets to witness most of the action from the sideline than the padded seats in the stand.