International soccer:The latest delay in the search for the new Ireland manager drew strong criticism from Richard Dunne last night with the Republic's senior international player of the year for 2007 expressing annoyance at the way the process has dragged out.

His comments came after Don Givens told members of the FAI board that it will be up to 10 more days before the association's recruitment panel is in a position to present their recommendation on who should get the job.

The delay has been caused by the inability of Givens, Ray Houghton and Don Howe to meet with Giovanni Trapattoni over the weekend. The 68-year-old, one of the game's most successful managers ever, remains the favourite for the job but with Givens preoccupied with the game against Brazil a meeting with the Italian has had to be put on hold until at least the latter part of this week.

"If I wasn't involved with the game then perhaps things could be resolved in less than the 10 days," said Givens, "but I am so it's only fair and I get my head focused on preparing the players to face Brazil."

There is concern within the FAI that in the event Terry Venables senses he is about to lose out to the former Juventus, Milan and Inter coach he might pull out of the race leaving the association facing the prospect of huge embarrassment if they then failed to tie up a deal with Trapattoni. Sources close to the Londoner suggested last night, however, that he would not be withdrawing.

His prospects may have well been boosted by Dunne who was clear about who he would like to see get the job. "Personally I'd probably prefer somebody we can communicate with, being Venables," said the 28-year-old. "I don't know how good Trapattoni's English is and we only have two games after this one before the start of the World Cup campaign so we need somebody who can get his point across very quickly."

Dunne said he is "annoyed" with the length of time that finding Steve Staunton's successor has taken. "There should have been somebody in to pick this squad. Don does his best but he's not going to be our manager in the long term. The players want to know who is and get some sort of plan going for the next two years. It's annoying most of all because nobody knows what's going on. You keep hearing reports that it'll be sorted next week, it'll be done next week. They say now that it'll be done in the next 10 days so we'll wait and see."

He added that that frustration with the situation has driven a number of players to retirement. "I know there is, so it needs to be sorted out before there's more people go the way of Steve Finnan and Andy O'Brien."

Former Ireland manager Steve Staunton also expressed doubts about the wisdom of appointing Trapattoni as his replacement. "His credentials are second to none, the only thing you have to question there is what's his English like? What's his knowledge of the Irish players? How well does he know what the Irish players feel and what they're all about because I think we are a little bit different."