Mick McCarthy has revealed that he will not continue managing the Republic of Ireland beyond the European Championships in 2004 and will seek a job with a Premiership club.
McCarthy has been in charge of the Irish national team for six-and-a-half years and is currently attempting to guide his side to their second major international tournament under his reign.
The beginning of their bid to reach Portugal in two years' time was not perhaps what many expected – a 4-2 defeat to Russia in Moscow – but McCarthy and his men play host to Group 10 leaders Switzerland on Wednesday hoping to put their campaign back on track.
Having enjoyed considerable success in the international arena – certainly in comparative terms – McCarthy admits that he would relish a return to club management.
The Yorkshireman managed Millwall from 1992 to 1996 – when he replaced Jack Charlton as Eire boss – but has never experienced management in the top flight, having narrowly missed out on promotion with The Lions in 1994 after finishing third in Division One only to lose out to Derby in the play offs.
Despite being heavily linked to the briefly vacant post at Sunderland, which was quickly filled by Howard Wilkinson, McCarthy insists he is not interested in leaving the Ireland job just yet – although he admits the thought crossed his mind after all the traumatic events of the World Cup this summer.
Speaking in an interview with The Guardian this week, the 43-year-old said: "At the time, not while we were playing but afterwards, I considered it. But then I considered qualifying for the European Championship and I thought, with the team we've got and the way we've played, why should I walk away?
"I think I might have been walking away to suit other people, not to suit me. I love doing this job and to qualify for Portugal in 2004 was my ambition.
"I'd like to qualify for the European Championship and then I will have done eight years in the job and I think that's more than enough. I will go away from it, whatever happens. Even if we qualify I will go and look for a job."
He explained: "I miss that day-to-day stuff. I've got more used to doing this job and the time it affords you but I would still like to manage in the Premiership. I'll manage a football club but the kick is the team. That's what drives us all on I imagine, it certainly drives me: the football matches.
"You can have more of an influence on the players, certainly - on the pitch I'm talking about - that is what we all like doing best. That is the best part of the job; training with the players, doing coaching sessions, not all the other stuff that goes with it - training day-to-day and the matches."
Some of the 'other stuff' that went with McCarthy's job this summer certainly had an impact on him, and he feels it still has an effect on his players. So what is the legacy of the Roy Keane affair?
Mick admitted: "It has changed me, I'm sure. What I went through in those two weeks has made me capable of dealing with anything, I would have thought."
He added: "There's an underlying thing with Roy and whether he'll play that's still being churned up. That's a bit of a negative influence around the squad.
"I think before the Russia game some of the lads said that, before every question, Roy was mentioned – ''How do you think you're going to play without Roy?' While that remains, it doesn't do us any favours but that's the way it is I'm afraid.
"I'm not going to suggest that anything to do with the performance (in Moscow) was down to that. But I also know that when you are preparing yourself as a player, you don't want to be answering questions about that."
Asked whether there may be any chance of a reconciliation with his former captain, McCarthy is adamant that there is none. He stated: "It's not going to happen – he knows that and I know that.
"If I could go back and change things and make it all right, I would. But if I could go back in time and things were going to happen the same again, I wouldn't do it differently.
"Everything that was done, was with the best intentions. It wasn't what I wanted to happen – the circumstances between Roy and myself – and it wasn't planned, for heaven's sake. To have one of the world's best players playing for us was what I wanted."
But that was not to be, and Ireland performed magnificently in Japan and South Korea regardless. So here ends the Roy Keane chapter in McCarthy's managerial handbook, but there are still several pages to turn with regard to the Republic of Ireland before, Mick hopes, a novel experience in England's top flight.
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