HE HAS become a caricature of himself -- the ultimate grumpy old man who complains for the sake of complaining.

Eamon Dunphy left viewers astonished after his most bizarre punditry yet describing Giovanni Trapattoni as a "drunken gambler".

Instead of enjoying a decent result and performance against Italy in their own backyard, Dunphy expressed "despair" at Giovanni Trapattoni.

Hot on the heels of his musings earlier on in the week when he said that Trapattoni "didn't care", Dunphy tore shreds off the Italian after he got a result against his native country.

Trapattoni's men snatched a fully deserved 1-1 draw against Italy in Bari last night, a venue in which the world champions had a 100pc record.

The result keeps Ireland in touch with the Italians in the race to qualify for the World Cup in South Africa next year.

But Mr Dunphy didn't have a good word to say about Trap's management style.

Instead, he cribbed about Trapattoni's "crazy decisions".

"I think the coach made a couple of crazy decisions in the original selection and subsequently in the substitutions," he told Bill O'Herlihy, presenter of RTE's coverage of the match.

guts

Mr Dunphy moaned: "Taking off Kevin Doyle was lunatic asylum stuff so don't let's get carried away with the great coach.

" What he has got is that all of those players have guts and willingness and in the end we just about had enough guile to survive."

Later on, Mr Dunphy added: "He [Trapattoni] got away with murder tonight. After 19 minutes he took [Andy] Keogh off and put [Caleb] Folan on. Folan is really not an international footballer and neither is Keogh incidentally.

"And then he took Kevin Doyle off in the second half and put Noel Hunt on. That's illogical. He has Lee Carsley not in the squad; he's got Andy Reid not in the squad.

"This guy should get down on his hands and knees in the dressing room and thank the players for what they've done for him tonight because the spirit they showed proved we can be competitive at this level."

The RTE presenter interjected to say, surely, that is down to Trapattoni's influence as well.

Mr Dunphy then went on: "He was like a drunken gambler in a casino, Bill, he was throwing chips on the table.

"Noel Hunt for Kevin Doyle -- are you serious? Folan for Keogh -- are you serious?

"He didn't know what he wanted. He was just gambling."

But viewers flooded the station with emails slamming his criticisms.

row

Another radio station, Newstalk, was also inundated by fans giving out about Eamon's comments following the stirring draw.

The controversy is a re-run of the row that gripped the nation in 1990 when Mr Dunphy had a high-profile falling out with then-Ireland manager Jack Charlton.

While the rest of the country adored Charlton, Dunphy famousley did not. An incensed Charlton famously branded Dunphy a "bitter little man".

Ireland are second in Group 8, two points behind Italy and five points ahead of Bulgaria who we play in June.

hnews@herald.ie

- Ian Mallon