Last week was one of those weeks when I thought about Robert. Robert was a QPR fan, a friend of my cousin's and sometime in the mid-1980s, Robert travelled back with us from Loftus Road after we had been to see QPR lose to Everton.

Robert quickly moved on from QPR's position (perpetually hazardous) to discuss a more comfortable topic, Chelsea and the failings of their manager John Hollins who was engaged in an even more hazardous battle: working for Ken Bates.

I have written about Robert before and his simple request for John Hollins because it often seems like the kind of solution that could save football. Robert had a problem with Hollins and his problem was this: "Hollins," he said, as we drove back to my uncle's house in Willesden, "doesn't have the decency to admit he's a rubbish manager." Few at that time accused John Hollins of lacking decency -- decency was the thing he was said to possess while lacking some other skills required of a manager -- but Robert set high standards. Many managers have since walked in Hollins' footsteps and refused this statement of decency, blind to the honest admission, "I am a rubbish manager."

Last week, Robert would have expected Paul Jewell, Joe Kinnear, Mark Hughes and others to front up but they had another prey. They were going to disrespect the ref. Last week, it was possible to feel some sympathy for referees, to forget for a moment the ludicrous 'Respect the Ref' campaign and understand how useful they are as a deflection for the incompetence of others.

Jewell seems to have spent most of his time as Derby manager pointing out the inadequacies of others and last week he was among those looking back to a nostalgic age when you could "talk" to referees. Why would you want to do that?

The League Managers' Association is considering withdrawing their support for the Respect campaign in protest at a number of bad decisions, but in some ways the FA withdrew their own support when they overturned the red card John Terry received at Manchester City even though the referee insisted it was the correct decision

Now the managers are considering some childish options like keeping their teams in the dressing room past kick-off time, acts of petulance in keeping with the notion that a lifetime in football arrests all development. There is, as Robert would understand, also an absence of decency.

They don't talk much too much about referees on the RTE panel. It is one of the many things that distinguishes them from their counterparts on the BBC and Sky. Sky take on the referees wholeheartedly, perhaps liberated by the knowledge that Keith Hackett doesn't have any say in the destination of the next television deal or maybe they just like telling it as it is.

No, on RTE, John Giles and Eamon Dunphy are never detained long by the ref, working on the assumption that most referees will make desperate mistakes, only pausing for a moment to point out something truly egregious, before returning to deal with the metaphysical and philosophical. They would know for example that Paul Jewell is not where he is solely because of bad refereeing but they would also be aware that he was once Eamon Dunphy's number one choice as Ireland's manager.

But this means nothing, something the FAI might now reflect on in a week when Dunphy said "I don't think Giovanni Trapattoni's position is tenable". There were qualifications and conditions attached and it was said more in sorrow than in anger, but the most satisfying thing is that it was said.

A friend recalls going to see a Donovan gig some time ago at the Purty Kitchen on the Monkstown/Dun Laoghaire border. Donovan brought his unique brand of meditative reflection, moving gently and with aplomb through his greatest hits. But my friend recalls an undercurrent of menace in the air, a deep foreboding which would not go away no matter how much Donovan talked of peace, love and understanding. This, my friend concluded, was fear. Fear that at any point Donovan would address the crowd and announce he was now going to play something he'd just been working on in the studio. This theory was confirmed when a companion of my friend turned to him and said, "If he even says he's going to play some new stuff, I'll hit him."

This, I believe, is where we are now with Eamon Dunphy. We want the Greatest Hits, we want the Jack Charlton riff, the Platini/Ronaldo riff and the Great Irishman riff, sometimes referred to as the Eddie O'Sullivan riff. We don't want any new stuff and Dunphy knows this. He is the Led Zeppelin of football punditry. Zeppelin may soon tour without Robert Plant as singer and there is much dismay among their fans at this but once Page jump-starts the riff on 'Whole Lotta Love' the response from the crowd will be Pavlovian. Despite themselves, they will be unconsciously soothed. They will be given what they want and we're all suckers for that.

So when Trapattoni suddenly starts aping Jack Charlton and Andy Reid is widely referred to as the new David O'Leary, Dunphy is obliged to respond. First of all, that's his material, he owns it, it is his intellectual copyright -- his birthright, even. Those who are dismayed will, like Zeppelin's fans, be soothed by the familiar notes on the strident riff.

These days, he may not have the stamina for a long campaign, for the beautifully crafted works of the 1990s or for the long war. Some might even be surprised that within a few weeks of describing Trapattoni's appointment as the greatest thing that has ever happened to Ireland, ever, he is dismissing it as an unmitigated disaster but this is what his fans want. We do not want him mellow, we do not want him yellow and the song must remain the same.

dionfanning@gmail.com

- Dion Fanning