Kenny Cunningham says Heimir Hallgrimsson got it wrong this week in allowing John O'Shea and Paddy McCarthy to take leading roles with the preparation of the Ireland team.
The Boys in Green face Greece tomorrow in the Nations League following on from Saturday's 2-0 defeat to England in the same competition.
The loss to the Three Lions was Hallgrimsson's first game in charge but he had made clear beforehand that O'Shea and McCarthy would be helping him out more than would be considered usual with a management team.
This was owing to his relatively recent appointment to the role, and the fact that he took the job after Ireland's last games in June.
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Hallgrimsson reaffirmed the fact that O'Shea and McCarthy would be doing much of the heavy lifting for the Greek encounter, with former Irish defender O'Shea taking on media duties this morning.
For Cunningham, who was talking on RTÉ's Drivetime programme, the situation should never have got this far.
"It's a mistake, this week, in terms of how they've handled it, the management team," he said.
"I was really looking forward to these two games, in particular the manager; how he saw things, how he was going to change his tactical set up.
"We were all interested in how he was going to shake things up. It was a big disappointment to hear that he had handed that responsibility to John and Paddy McCarthy.
"I thought it was very unusual, I was really scratching my head. They had four or five days lead up to this game and in international football, that's as long as you're going to get.
"Four days on the training pitch with the players. Plenty of time to do video analysis in the hotel room. That's as much time as you're going to get.
"As a player in the squad I would have wanted to have heard what the new manager had to say, what he wanted us to do; a clean broom to a certain extent.
"To be told that John and Paddy are taking it this week and you're best directing your questions towards them, I don't think that was the right start."
Hallgrimsson was appointed just under two months ago but the lack of game time meant he was only meeting players for the first time, in an official capacity with Ireland, last week.
But for Cunningham, the previous eight weeks should have been ample time for the Icelandic native to come up with a plan which he could have implemented in these two games.
"He's had enough time, he wasn't parachuted into the job 48 hours ago," the 72-times capped former Irish international said of the situation.
"He's been in the job two months. He's probably watched 20 or 30 of these international games. So in terms of the individual qualities of the players, their strengths and weaknesses, he would have seen that on video footage.
"I understood he won't have met the players personally or formed opinions of their personalities or characters.
"But in terms of the qualities they have as footballers, I'm sure he would have known that. If I was him I'd be bursting to get onto the training pitch and set the team up the way I wanted to."
Watch Republic of Ireland v Greece in the UEFA Nations League on Tuesday from 7.20pm on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player. Follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to commentary on 2fm's Game On
