Roy Keane News Archives

Keano has lost patience with some his players and wants to ship out the non-performers as soon as possible:

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Roy Keane insists that Sunderland haven’t yet secured their Premier League future.

A fourth consecutive win for the Black Cats at home to Manchester City on Saturday will all but see the north-east club safe.

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Roy Keane has done his hardman image considerable damage - he’s brought in a psychologist to help inspire his Sunderland players to success.

But that’s not the worst part of it actually - he’s brought in the same person who was appointed by Steve McClaren to help the England players, Bill Beswick (he was also at Manchester United, apparently.

Actually, we shouldn’t be so harsh. You need an edge in professional football and if Beswick can give Sunderland players that edge over their rivals, then so be it. Brum, Boro, Bolton, Fulham, Reading and Newcastle might laugh, but at the end of the season if Sunderland can finish ahead of two of these six teams, it’ll be Keano (and Beswick) doing all the laughing.

Roy Keane:

“I enjoyed chatting to Bill very much when I was a player and he has been in once or twice to talk to the players.

We try different things on different occasions and the high jumper Steve Smith has also been in a couple of times and given talks about the mental side of the game. You’ve sometimes got to get out of the box and think a bit differently to other people. I’m very open-minded.”

When a manager goes on record as saying that he’s ‘very open-minded’, it’s a failed attempt to stave off criticism that he’s getting desperate.

More Keano:

“You’ve got to try things and you just hope the players plug into it. Some people might want to see Bill one to one, others don’t and they won’t see him again. I generally think the players enjoy it, though. We don’t tie them into a seat and make them listen for 90 minutes; it’s all very casual.”

And then this gem:

“The position at United was also very casual. If you wanted to go to see Bill you went to see him. Some players never saw him, I saw him once or twice but I often couldn’t get in because Gary Neville was always in there with him.”

Best of luck to Keane and Sunderland (and to Gary Neville as well - will the Neviller play for United this season?) - hopefully they can stay up for a go at mid-table security next season.

Sunderland have led something of a yo-yo existance over the past few years. Promotion to the Premier League with a record points total in 1999 was followed by two successful years in the top flight with consecutive 7th place finishes. The next season was less successful and relegation with a record low number of points followed in 2003. 2004 saw play-off failure, but promotion followed in 2005 as champions. Relegation with a new record low number of points came in the first season, but a Roy Keane inspired team bounced straight back last season as champions again.

For a long while it looked as though Keane would guide his side to mid-table and end this run of ups and downs. It looked as though he would establish Sunderland as a Premiership side. He still might do that, but it’s going to be mighty close.

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Sunderland manager Roy Keane seems to think so:

“Five major decisions have gone against us.

We keep talking about fairness but the decisions certainly haven’t gone our way. You’re looking at six points lost.

…

I find it very hard to take some of the comments that come my way from referees and officials and generally the attitude to our football club has left me very disappointed.

The attitude seems to be ‘It’s only Sunderland’. All we’re asking for is fairness in the game and this football club is not getting that at the moment.”

He’s right about the Derby game - Sunderland deserved to win that one and were denied by a poor refereeing decision.

But what about the incorrect decisions that have gone in Sunderland’s favor? Are we only going to look at the points Sunderland have lost and not the points Sunderland have gained?

Keano, I respect you a lot, but maybe you should consider this and this as well.

Former Liverpool boss Gerard Houllier says English footballers are pushed into top management jobs too quickly. He has told the BBC Inside Sport programme that he believes Bryan Robson, Stuart Pearce and Gareth Southgate all took on senior positions far too soon.

“In France, you cannot become a manager when you step out of your career as a player,” he said.

“Would a manager of a big company put somebody without experience into a key position in his company? No, he would not, but they do in football.”

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The table, they say, doesn’t lie. Derby County (20) lie 10 points behind Sunderland (18) and Wigan (17) and with 17 games to go, Derby manager Paul Jewell will know that a Portsmouth / West Ham styled come-back is highly unlikely even if he could bring in a new starting XI (Paul already has 5 transfers done with 11 days gone, so you never know).

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Here are some notable quotes made during the past year. Each was stated by the named individual; however, my responses were created, and are not meant to represent the views of the individuals. Nor libel them in any way. This is both a factual and (hopefully) a light-hearted article.

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Towards the end of 2006, certain pundits and magazines were proclaiming the birth of Sir Alex Ferguson’s third (for some, fourth) great team stemming from his 20-year tenure at Manchester United.

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It’s that time of the year again. The time when a random (ok, let’s call it ‘well-respected’ if you prefer) football publication makes an “All Time Best” ranking that never fails to create controversy and offend a few people.

FourFourTwo did one of those last month, this time it’s the turn of the ‘Association of Football Statisticians’ to make its Top 100, after studying every fact and figure from the beautiful game over the past 100 years.

Points are given for goals scored by forwards and clean sheets for defenders. Players also get awarded marks for trophies won, captaincy and the level they played at throughout their career.

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This article is a submission for the Soccerlens Football Writing Competition; to participate, please read the details here.

Written by John Conroy.

God bless Roy Keane. He’s as mad as four small spaniels, but he can always be counted on to stir up a good row.

WAGs, dithering transfer-targets, lazy teammates, the Irish FA, and even blameless prawn sandwiches are but a small sample of the entities who have fallen foul of his wrath. And that’s off the pitch. As we all know, the guy was a frothing lunatic when he was actually playing.

As good as he was at football (and as good as he seems to be at management), the man is genuinely precocious at pissing people off, particularly his peers in football.

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Will he or won’t he?

With wonderkid Wayne Rooney itching to get back to first-team action there were rumours that he could be brought back, in some role, for the Manchester United v Everton game. Highly unlikely that something like this would happen, what with World Cup 2006 still fresh in SAF’s mind.

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I saw the Sunderland-Liverpool game and it pains me to say that Sunderland, for all their fighting spirit, lack quality and experience all over the pitch.

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Sunderland manager Keano’s latest tirade is priceless:

“We have had one or two players this year and their wives are clearly part of the package.

“We had one player this summer who didn’t even have the courtesy to call us back because his wife wanted to move to London - and shopping was mentioned.”

Keano, I hope that you told his destination club this tidbit.

Could it be David Healy Roy Keane’s talking about? He’s moved to London, and there’s also the Manchester United connection (Healy was with us in the late 90’s). Since Keano’s looking for a striker to move to Sunderland, Healy is a good bet for this.

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As a Roy Keane fan (obviously), I rooted for Sunderland last season and will be following them again this season in the Premiership. For Sunderland fans these are days filled with optimism, and there’s every reason to expect a Reading-like season for Roy Keane’s men.

However, it would be remiss of me as a football blogger and owner of a football news blog if I didn’t comment on the big money (for Sunderland) signings of Michael Chopra and Kieran Richardson.

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On Monday I asked everyone who they thought was the Premiership’s greatest player ever.

There were plenty of varied responses, but the votes centered around a handful of players (I’ve listed them below). Some very interesting observations were made as well - one of the key ones being that any such list is ’striker-heavy’ because we tend to under-rate defensive players.

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It is widely rumored that Roy Keane is set to lure former Manchester United team mates Paul Scholes and Nicky Butt to The Stadium of Light.

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With Derby County losing today to Crystal Palace 2-0 that means that both Birmingham and Sunderland claim the automatic promotion spots to the Premiership.

Congratulations to the Sunderland Football Club, their players, their fans and specifically freshman Chairman Niall Quinn and manager Roy Keane for a fantastic first season at the club.

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One of the real exciting aspects of the Championship this season has been the remarkable run Sunderland have enjoyed since the turn of the year - winning fourteen of seventeen games and drawing the other three.

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Roy Keane. Mark Hughes. Marcello Lippi. Carlos Queiroz.

Who would you pick (in two years) as your next Manchester United manager?

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I wonder how much The Sun and the Guardian pay their writers to transform interviews into juicy bits of gossip and fabricated tosh presented as news? I love reading the Guardian, but there are times when they lose sight of reality and pander to advertising dollars.

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Sunderland continue to surge up the Championship table having won ten of their last twelve games and drawn the other two. A fairly comfortable win against a tired WBA on Saturday has put them in fourth place and only one point adrift of second place and automatic promotion.

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In Roy Keane’s first season as manager he now has the opportunity to get Sunderland promoted - after he took over the team in late August from Chairman Niall Quinn - following four successive league defeats.

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So there you have it - a club threatened with relegation to League One at the start of the season is now into the playoffs spots and with three top-tier clashes coming up back to back, is eagerly looking at a top 2 finish and automatic qualification.

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Everyone has been quoting from the Sunday Times interview of Roy Keane - in case you’re interested in reading the bloody interview itself, here’s the link:

Roy Keane Sunday Times Interview

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