Walters: I won’t slag Keane off
JON WALTERS has refused to point a finger of blame at Roy Keane for the Irish team’s decline in 2018.
And he claims the Boys in Green would have qualified for Euro 2020 with Martin O’neill in charge.
Walters and team-mate Harry Arter were involved in a high profile summer bust-up with Keane that rocked the camp.
According to Stephen Ward’s leaked Whatsapp, Walters extended an olive branch to Keane by inviting him to his room to talk it out.
His former Ipswich Town boss declined but Walters insists he won’t use that as a stick to beat the axed assistant boss who he had clashed with before.
“I’ve played under him Keane a couple of times and I don’t want to get into a mud-slinging argument,” said injured striker Walters.
“Things happened over the summer which were well publicised, I wasn’t part of what happened with the leaked Whatsapp.
“Things do happen, but I don’t think it’s the right time to push that and say that’s the reason (for the team’s poor year).”
Walters added: “We’re the players that go out on the pitch and we haven’t got the results over the last 12 months.
“Ultimately when that happens the pressure always goes to the manager. As a player you’re not held accountable so much.”
Speaking on Talksport, Walters added: “The results haven’t been great over the last 12 months, but to balance that there has been a big change in the squad.
“I think we still would have qualified under Martin. But it’s been a difficult 12 months and the people in charge have decided to change it.”
Keane’s state of the nation address was always the highlight of the week. That’s why he will get a job at some point
LAST month, Roy Keane suggested he would be interested in a return to club management ‘soon’ providing the challenge ‘rocked his boat’.
The question now is who would take that risk as he is as culpable in Ireland’s recent decline as Martin O’neill. His lack of ego when taking on No.2 roles with Ireland and Aston Villa was admirable. It showed he was willing to learn the ropes after bombing at Ipswich.
But throughout his five years with Ireland, he never hid his desire to return to the day-to-day grind. When things were going swimmingly for O’neill, Keane was regarded as a viable candidate to one day succeed him in the top job.
It is interesting his name has not cropped up once in the succession race discussion since Wednesday’s events - and nor will it as he is not a contender.
“This idea I’d be looking at a club and thinking ‘I fancy that one’, I don’t work that way, I don’t network,” he said a month ago.
“But hopefully soon I’d like to become a manager again but we’ll see what happens. It’s just getting that offer and challenge that will rock my boat.”
In 2014, the former Sunderland boss was close to leaving the Ireland coaching ticket for Celtic but turned down the chance to succeed Neil Lennon.
He also rejected a move to Turkish club Kasımpasa and was linked with the Iceland and Israel national jobs as well as Blackburn and Bolton.
Today, you suspect Keane would be doing well to court a Championship club although a giddy owner looking for publicity may well take a punt.
Even when Ipswich were struggling under Keane, Sky Sports News would regularly send a reporter and camera crew to his weekly press conferences.
The Roy Keane sideshow remains a big draw, regardless of what he does or doesn’t offer in the inner sanctum of the dressing room and training pitch.
When Matt Doherty delivered his withering assessment of O’neill’s coaching methods on radio the other night, Keane did not escape unscathed.
The Wolves and Ireland defender delivered a damning verdict on Keane’s value as O’neill’s assistant.
“Ermmm (long pause) .... I guess he was Martin’s assistant,” Doherty (below) told 2FM’S ‘Game On’ when asked to assess his qualities.
“He must have fed ideas off him, on whatever he was thinking.
“It wasn’t necessarily a case where he (Keane) has taken the session and was doing shape. It wasn’t a case of that at all. I guess he was just a back-up to Martin.
“I wouldn’t say he was handson on the training pitch.
“Maybe if he was manager, he might have a bit more responsibility.”
Doherty added:
“When players go into management, they might think they’ll bring their ideas forward, but when they get into it, it’s difficult to do that.”
In his departing statement on Wednesday, O’neill hailed Keane as an “inspirational figure”.
But – unsurprisingly – he was a divisive one too, courting controversy throughout that period and clashing with players behind the scenes.
The build-up to the September doubleheader just gone was dominated by the fiery bust-up he had with Harry Arter and Jon Walters – a story exclusively broken by Mirror Sport.
Lest we forget, it promoted Arter to walk away from international football - however briefly.
Stephen Ward’s leaked Whatsapp message then added meat to the bones and gave an intriguing insight into life with Roy.
When Ireland lost a friendly to Belarus just before Euro 2016, Keane had to apologise to Aiden Mcgeady after claiming “he could do a lot better ….that’s the story of his career”. We only have O’neill’s word that Declan Rice’s ongoing stay away stance has nothing to do with Keane’s summer flare up with Walters and Arter.
After this newspaper broke the Arter-walters story, the FAI kept Keane out of the firing line. He was pulled from all interviews with the association claiming it was always the plan.
That’s unlikely, but Keane’s state of the nation addresses in the build up to games were often the highlight of the week.
But while we don’t know who it is yet, there is a club owner out there tickled by the idea of it all and that, more than any football reason, is why Keane will manage again.