The second half is over for Keane. It’s time he was shown the exit
BY some distance, the worst financial decision of my life was buying a 10-year-ticket for the Aviva stadium from the FAI in 2009. Purchased for an eye-watering amount of money I’ve never revealed even to my nearest and dearest, it has produced hardly one decent night out. Since Lansdowne Road reopened in all its shiny glory in 2010, the stadium has mostly had the atmosphere of a deconsecrated graveyard, the deathly quiet occasionally interrupted by a passing Dart or the squeals of uninterested children dragged along to see Ireland as punishment for some misdemeanour. ‘ You didn’t eat your greens. So you can share in the misery of watching them.’
In recent times, however, the experience has become a little more interesting. Since he was appointed as Martin O’Neill’s assistant a year ago, Roy Keane has been sitting not too far away from me on match days, and I’ve had a bird’s eye view of him as he goes about his business. For a man of such fearsome reputation, he’s a strangely passive creature.
Though his intense eyeballing of the referee in Glasgow last weekend raised a few chuckles, in Lansdowne Road he’s rarely on his feet, rarely speaks to Martin O’Neill, rarely briefs players as to their job when they’re coming on the pitch and offers the occasional half-hearted pat on the back to players who have been substituted. Whatever his value to O’Neill, it’s clear that it occurs before the match, on the training ground, doing video analysis of opponents or contributing to team meetings.
YOU can see what he might bring to those particular tasks. He was an excellent player, arguably our greatest ever. Memories of his great performances in an Irish shirt still raise the hairs on the back of the neck. The effort he put in to help Ireland beat Holland in September 2001 and effectively qualify for the World Cup the following year was astonishing, his finest 90 minutes in a green shirt.
He charged up and down the pitch, tackling, inspiring, barking orders and intimidating opponents, one of whom, Marc Overmars, received such a magnificent leathering from Keane after less than a minute that he barely featured for the rest of the game. There are many who seriously argue that had Keane been available to the team at the 2002 World Cup, we could have made it to the final, such was the open nature of that particular competition.
The reason he wasn’t in the team, of course, was that he either walked out or was kicked out. Either way, his absence was the result of a complex and difficult personality which attracts trouble and negative consequences whenever he has to deal with other human beings for more than a few sentences. It’s a side of himself which he recognises and attempts to explain in his latest autobiogra- phy, The Second Half. ‘Anger is a useful trait,’ he writes. ‘But when I’m backed into a corner, when I get into situations, professional or personal, I know deep down that when I lose my rag and I might be in the right – it doesn’t matter – I know I’m going to be the loser.’
Despite Tuesday’s entertaining victory over the USA, there’s a sense that Keane is on the verge of losing again, and that O’Neill, in particular, must be wondering whether continuing to have his assistant alongside him is more trouble than it’s worth.
Whatever Keane has brought to his job with Ireland, and only he and O’Neill really know that, it must now be clear to everybody involved that it has been far outweighed by the negatives that now attend Ireland fixtures, most of which have Keane at their centre.
In just a year, the number of Keane controversies has been astonishing. First of all, there was speculation over whether he would quickly depart the job to manage Celtic. When that turned out not to be true, there was the will he/won’t he palaver over his intentions towards Aston Villa, where he eventually ended up as assistant manager. Then there was the release of his book, and its airing of his many grievances, just before Ireland played Gibraltar and Germany in October.
THEN there was the altercation with Frank Gillespie in a hotel in Malahide. Then Keane started a row with Everton football club, whose co-operation over its many Irish players will be vital for the next few years. Then he lashed out at journalists who were merely doing their jobs by asking him obvious, to-be-expected questions. And then, for no apparent reason, he had a pop at the father of a young player called Jack Grealish, who can play for either Ireland or England, and whose choice of which country to represent might well be swayed by the fact that the assistant manager of Ireland decided to pick on his dad.
In his short time with Ireland, there have been enough controversies surrounding Keane to fill half his next book. All are related to his fractious personality, to a lack of the kind of diplomacy and basic cop-on which would encourage the rest of us to keep our mouths shut.
O’Neill seems to have found this slightly endearing in the early days, treating Keane has though he were a crazy little puppy, nipping away at his ankles. Over the past year, however, Keane has become even more volatile, taking bites at every target that presents itself to him.
He has become a liability and a distraction. It’s time he was shown the door.