Under-fire Staunton hoping for brighter future

Steve Staunton is hoping Stephen Ireland’s face-saving winner proves to be a turning point in the Republic of Ireland’s sorry European Championship qualifying campaign.

Staunton was potentially just eight seconds away from losing his job before the Manchester City midfielder struck in the fourth minute of stoppage time to earn a 2-1 victory over San Marino.

The 38-year-old insists he would not have considered his position even if San Marino had claimed their first point in European Championship history after 37 successive defeats.

But coming just four months after the 5-2 humiliation against Cyprus, it is surely inconceivable the FAI would have again stood by their man.

FAI chief executive John Delaney, who axed Staunton’s predecessor Brian Kerr, is also in the firing line as fans called for his head.

“My over-riding feeling is one of relief as we were looking at Liechtenstein all over again,” said Staunton – referring to the goalless draw with the minnows in a Euro 96 qualifier.

“You can’t legislate for what is happening at the moment, but hopefully the tide has turned with that late winner. We at least showed tremendous heart, spirit and fight, creating three or four chances after they scored.

“Thankfully we took one of them and we won the game, and now we’ll keep going.”

Manuel Marini had capitalised on an horrendous mix-up between substitute Paul McShane and goalkeeper Wayne Henderson to scuff home an equaliser, cancelling out Kevin Kilbane’s 49th-minute opener.

“We are angry ourselves,” insisted Staunton. “We don’t like coming here and scraping through, but you have to see the other side of it.

“We are rebuilding and trying to look forward, and we’ve enough character about us and that is the main thing.

“We know we have to improve, and hopefully we’ll be stronger.”

San Marino boast just one professional in their squad in captain Andy Selva, and plays for Italian Serie C1/A club Sassuolo, with the remainder made up of non-league part timers, while Staunton’s line-up included nine Premiership professionals.

“We have taken six points from the two games with San Marino, and that is all we wanted,” said Staunton, whose side won 5-0 at Lansdowne Road in November.

“It would have been nice to have scored 10 or 12 goals, but we haven’t. We’ve got six points, and at the end of the day that is the most important thing in the final analysis.

“Obviously the players are very disappointed with the performance, but you can’t question their commitment and attitude.

“We controlled the game for virtually the entire match, apart from one mix-up, creating enough chances in the first-half to have gone into the break 3-0 or 4-0 up. In the second-half we had further good chances. In the end Stevie Ireland got us out of a hole.”