ROY KEANE CASTS A CAUSTIC EYE ON THE CULT OF THE PREMIER LEAGUE MANAGER
Martin O’Neill’s Ireland assistant Roy Keane offers a withering assessment of club owners in England
TIME FLIES, but whether Roy Keane has had any fun is an entirely different matter. A decade on from his appointment as Sunderland manager, the Ireland assistant boss has endured more than he has enjoyed.
Promotion to the Premier League as winners of the Championship in his first season was followed by successfully keeping the Black Cats in the top flight the year after.
The good times didn’t last. Just when some thought he had this management lark cracked, disagreements with the club’s American owner, Ellis Short, led to Keane resigning during his third term.
Ipswich Town was next, an unmitigated disaster which began when Keane accepted the job without actually meeting the chief executive, and ended with him getting sacked in January 2011 having completed just one full season.
He hasn’t held a position of real power since, biding his time and reeducating himself as a No.2 with Ireland under Martin O’Neill, while combining his work as Paul Lambert’s assistant for a short time with Aston Villa before eventually focusing solely on international duties.
Keane turns 45 in August, hardly an age where his afternoons should be spent watching Countdown and sucking Werther’s Original, but in the five years since his departure from Ipswich he has witnessed a change in emphasis from club owners searching for the next bright hope rather than someone who is capable of controlling the various facets beyond the training pitch.
It’s something he feels has counted against O’Neill since he was shown the door by Short at Sunderland three years ago.
‘That seems to be coming into the game more so in England with the amount of foreign owners. Particularly the Americans. They seem to love a coach who’s got the whistle around his neck, a clipboard and a tan and really white teeth. That gives you a chance,’ he begins, warming up with a withering take on the priorities of those who make the decisions at board level.
‘Obviously Martin [O’Neill] is old school, he likes to manage the club whereas a lot of clubs are employing, even on their contracts now they’re classed as coaches.
‘That’s just the way the game has gone, certainly in the last two, three years. I think it’s sad because a lot of clubs don’t need coaches, they need good managers.
‘Maybe it’s down to the foreign owners wanting coaches more than football managers. Martin manages away from the team, the staff, the preparation, what we’re doing. It’s slightly different at club level, they want someone who can put loads of cones and mannequins out. It’s different criteria for different clubs.’
Keane and O’Neill share a feeling of unfinished business in day-to-day club management, having both been sacked before linking up together with Ireland.
‘I think that’s always in your nature with sport,’ the former Manchester United captain explains. ‘If you’re a manager… I suppose I sort of feel the same with disappointment from Ipswich. You always feel it and go out to prove people wrong. It gives you a bit of energy to kick on.
‘It’s slightly different with the manager because his track record is pretty decent and mine is sketchy but you always use it as some form of motivation. I don’t think Martin is sticking it to anybody at Sunderland. He’s a good manager and everyone knows it – they should have just left him alone there.
‘He’s vastly experienced; he has a good way with the players. He knows his football. A lot of managers I’ve worked with are really good managers and know what to say at the right time.
‘Even [losing to Belarus], without overreacting to the result I think the manager always gets it spot on with whatever he says to the players, the staff, the preparation. He’s a loyal guy.’
Their focus now is on achieving success at Euro 2012 and when Keane is asked out straight if Ireland have any chance of winning the competition, he gives the only answer you would expect.
‘Can we win it? We can if we win a few games. What do you want me to say there? It’ll be very difficult. What price are we? Anyone know? To answer your question, we can win it but it’s easier said than done standing in a hotel with a bottle of water in your hand.
‘With the manager, we certainly believe we can get out of the group and then you take it from there. Even as a player you never really think beyond that. You can’t because of the pitfalls but I definitely think we can get out of the group. But it’s easy saying that in the hotel and saying “I think we can do this, we can go out and do it”.
DURING the last European Championship, Keane used a newspaper column to lambast the players after they were out of the tournament before their last group game with Italy. ‘Where is their ambition? Where is their hunger and drive to achieve something?’ he wrote, before turning attention to the more experienced members.
‘The likes of [Robbie] Keane, Shay Given, Richard Dunne, John O’Shea and Damien Duff are picked every game as they have a big reputation. A reputation for what? They hadn’t qualified for anything in 10 years.’
Now, four years on, Keane doesn’t believe there is a fear factor from those still a part of the set-up.
‘I think there has been a few things said over the last few years about the mentality at the last Euros. That was a tough group for Ireland. I don’t think for one minute the last squad were thinking they were going over there for a sing-song. No.
‘They went over there and had a bad start. It’s very hard to recover from that. I don’t want to come across as critical of the previous squad, they done well, but it was a very tough group.
‘I don’t sense that [fear] in the group, I don’t sense that among the lads who were in the last group that the mindset has changed that much.
‘The last group went over thinking they could get out of the group and we have the mindset as well. That’s why the first game [against Sweden] is so important, it’s the same for every country. Unless you’re one of the top countries in the world, you can recover from a set-back because you have really, really brilliant players.
‘We know how tight it will be and that we’ve got to get something on board. I don’t sense any difference in the mentality, obviously I wasn’t there last time but the players we have, I believe the players, Robbie Keane and Shay Given, they went over there with the mentality they would get out of the group. But talk is cheap, talk is cheap, it’s about action.’
Keane is no longer in the thick of it for Ireland, and May 22 marked the 25th anniversary of his international debut against Chile at Lansdowne Road. ‘Time flies,’ he says with a smile.
MARTIN HAS A PRETTY DECENT TRACK RECORD, MINE IS SKETCHY CAN WE WIN THE EUROS? YES, BUT IT’S EASIER SAID THAN DONE