Stephen Kenny has confirmed that he has no intention of resigning ahead of the culmination of his contract as coach of the national team.
The under-fire manager has two group games left in the current qualification campaign, and while Ireland have no chance of making it to Germany based on the current standings, there remains a possibility of securing a Euro 2024 play-off in March.
There has been constant speculation regarding the manager's future in the role beyond his current contract as a result of the string of poor results, most notably the double defeat to Greece, losing home and away to Gus Poyet’s charges.
But Kenny is determined to finish the campaign and determined to finish with some strong performances, starting with the away game in Faro against bottom side Gibraltar.
From there, it is on to the Netherlands in Amsterdam next month, followed by a friendly clash against New Zealand at the Aviva Stadium.
"I'm not considering resigning," said Kenny, speaking at the pre-match press conference. "My contact is to the end of the campaign and I will finish it.
"We want to finish the campaign strongly and we are very determined to do that. After that it’s completely out of my control. I have no control over the rest."
The FAI confirmed recently that Kenny would be in charge until those games are completed and they will then undertake a review of the entire qualifying campaign.
The manager added that he did not need clarification regarding his contract, and while the FAI review will take place ahead of the play-offs, Kenny is convinced that his contract would run to March if Ireland were to sneak into one of the available places.
"It's until the end of the campaign," said Kenny when asked does his current contract include the play-offs.
"So that's play-offs, or the European Championships, so it's the end of the campaign."
The manager admitted that they were keeping an eye on the different permuations around the other groups, knowing that several results would still need to go in Ireland’s favour to have the option of a back-door route into the Euros in Germany next summer.
"We are constantly updated and kept aware of possible opportunities," said Kenny.
"Turkey winning against Croatia wasn't good for us, but Bosnia winning was good. Bosnia have to play Slovakia in the last game, which is one possibility.
"And we don't know what's happening with Israel, if they had beaten Kosovo they would have gone into second, we don't know what the situation is there. It is interesting."
Remarkably there could be a scenario where Ireland go into the final game against the Dutch knowing that a defeat could actually aid their play-off hopes, however, the manager was adamant that it would not affect his team’s approach to the game.
"No, it's not something that's really entered our heads," he said, when alerted to the potential Dutch dilemma. "If we were to play any game, we'd play to win, any international game. It's not something that really we'd focus on.
"We’ll just focus on Gibraltar tomorrow. It's an international game that we want to win. We have to get a win under our belt tomorrow and I'm not really fixated on that scenario."
Kenny has always stated that he had landed his dream job when he took the reins of the national team, however, amid all the criticism, he was asked whether the joy had gone out of the role.
"Is it fun? I don’t know if that’s the right word," said Kenny.
"But certainly we have worked extremely hard behind the scenes. We have put in an incredible high performance environment behind the scenes now, in all areas; medical, sports science, statistical analysis… that’s on a par with anything.
"When the players come and speak positively, it's not personality or loyalty to me, it's because they know it's an exceptional high performance environment.
"What we have fallen down on, and it's on me as a coach, is we have let goals in in key times of matches when we're right in the game, or else having long spells and the first chance we concede, we get punished.
"Other teams have just been more ruthless than us in our group. But we have played two of the top teams in the world, who have won European championships in Holland and France.
"Greece, we could have finished third ahead of Greece but they are a good team and showed they are a good team. They were more ruthless than us the other night and that's a disappointment."
A strong element of empathy, no doubt, with rugby counterpart, Andy Farrell, who watched his side crash out of the World Cup on Saturday night, losing to the All Blacks in Paris.
"I saw a good bit of it," said Kenny. "Obviously, we were flying and then working as well, doing some stuff on Gibraltar.
"The team watched it and the staff. I was doing some stuff with Stephen Rice in relation to Gibraltar, but I watched a lot of it.
"They have been very unfortunate but have been a credit to the country. They are world number one which is a really high achievement, and they were just unfortunate to lose."
Watch Gibraltar v Republic of Ireland in Euro 2024 qualifying on Monday from 7pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on RTÉ.ie/Sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live radio commentary on 2fm's Game On
