ROY KEANE WAS at Wembley on Sunday night as an ITV pundit, watching on as England thrashed Ireland 5-0.

The Boys in Green could have done with a prime Keane, but the Man United legend symbolises a bygone era of Irish football in more ways than one.

Keane was the outstanding Irish player of his generation due to his attitude and ability.

The midfielder’s impossibly high standards were key to much of the success Man United enjoyed during his time there.

The Corkonian helped Ireland frequently punch above their weight on the international stage too.

Keane was able to galvanise the group and make them greater than the sum of their parts primarily due to this elite mentality.

A stark example was during the 2002 World Cup qualifiers.

Not many people gave Ireland hope of progressing. They were paired in their group with Portugal and Netherlands — two sides that had reached the semi-finals of the most recent major tournament, Euro 2000.

In addition, many of the great 1980s and 1990s generation of Irish players had retired.

Mick McCarthy had to rely on several players from England’s second tier, and individuals struggling for game time at their clubs.

So when Ireland went to Amsterdam and drew 2-2 with the Dutch in their opening qualifier, many people considered it a positive result.

Keane, on the other hand, was fuming that the visitors had let a two-goal lead slip in the final 20 minutes and vented his frustration.

It was one example of many — Keane at one stage criticised the Irish squad because so few of the players were plying their trade at top English clubs.

In his autobiography, he criticised the Irish attitude of settling for one big result at a major tournament — the famous 1-0 win over eventual runners-up Italy at the 1994 World Cup proved a false dawn, as Ireland failed to win their three subsequent matches.

That anti-climax didn’t stop a homecoming party at Phoenix Park attended by an estimated 100,000 people but not everyone was celebrating.

This perfectionism arguably was Keane’s undoing on the international stage — it led to the infamous debacle in Saipan. But it is also what drove him to produce a man-of-the-match performance at Lansdowne Road as Ireland beat the Dutch, at the second time of asking, to take a major step towards qualification. 

Ireland had several players unavailable that day, including two first-choice defenders (Kenny Cunningham and Gary Breen). The unlikely nature of the win against a Netherlands squad full of world-class players was epitomised by the fact that the match-winner at the time, Jason McAteer, was not a regular starter at Blackburn Rovers.

Those halcyon days felt like a million years ago on Sunday night.

Roy Keane was working as a pundit for ITV Sport at Wembley last night. Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Interesting comments were made in the build-up to last night’s England game by Irish striker Evan Ferguson.

The 20-year-old lamented the media’s negativity regarding the Irish team.

“It’s hard to turn off all media,” he said. “But I think anyone looking at Irish football knows that all talk is negative about it. Even with the win [on Thursday night], I’d say there’ll be a lot of negative [opinions] about it. But you have to try and block it out and do your best.”

Ferguson has a long way to go in his career, but he has the potential to be the most significant Irish footballer since the 2002 generation inspired by the Keanes (Roy and Robbie) along with Damien Duff.

It is hard not to compare his comments after the Finland win to Keane’s feelings following the Netherlands draw almost a quarter of a century ago.

Irish players should not be expecting praise or positivity in light of the results in recent years. The Finland victory was just their fourth win in 21 Nations League matches. If they don’t qualify for the upcoming World Cup, over a decade will have passed since they last played at a major tournament at a time when it is easier than ever to reach the Euros now that 24 teams are permitted. Keane, by contrast, was critical of Irish sides producing much better results than the current crop.

But the former star’s elite mentality is long gone. Nowadays, a defeatist attitude prevails. 

Heimir Hallgrimsson’s comments before the game hinted fans should expect the worst.

“Playing a game in our heads, it’s definitely going to be more possession England than Ireland and we just need to be aware of that fact,” he said. “Don’t be too agitated in defence. We will need at times to suffer and do a lot of running without the ball and we just need to accept that.” 

England are a top side but they have struggled against weaker opposition in the recent past — Greece beat them last month, while Denmark, Slovenia, Serbia and Slovakia were among the teams to cause them major problems at the Euros.

The Ireland were set up like a team trying not to get beaten rather than one with belief they could win the game.

Four players whose natural position is centre-back were selected along with two full-backs/wing-backs and two defensive midfielders. Evan Ferguson and Sammie Szmodics were the sole genuine attackers.

The Stephen Kenny era was largely forgettable but one of the few positives was that Ireland were invariably competitive.

Despite coming up against sides of the calibre of France, Netherlands and Portugal, they never lost a competitive fixture by more than two goals and they also never adopted as defensive a formation as the one Hallgrimsson oversaw last night.

A supposedly more pragmatic coach than Kenny led the team to their worst-ever loss to England and their first defeat by five goals since the 6-1 hammering by soon-to-be-world champions Germany in 2012.

But even some of the reactions to the game felt like the antithesis of Keane’s words all those years ago.

Ireland may have been unlucky with the Ferguson penalty decision in the first half, but to use it as an excuse feels like supreme straw-clutching, as even Hallgrimsson acknowledged.

The way Ireland responded to going behind, conceding three goals in five minutes, is more evidence of a squad suffering from a weak mentality. Every positive from the first half was undermined by the 45-minute capitulation that followed.

Over a year ago, Kenny’s Ireland were frequently criticised for conceding so many goals just after half-time. Since then, in the Nations League campaign alone, the team have conceded within 10 minutes of the break during both games against Greece and away to England last night. Hallgrimsson recently suggested he may hire a psychologist in an attempt to rectify these types of recurring woes.

Ferguson and most of the Ireland players from last night aren’t old enough to remember the 2002 World Cup and many great Ireland days before then. Some weren’t even born when Robbie Keane scored the incredible last-gasp equaliser against Germany.

They have grown up mainly watching Ireland suffer as they did last night.

Whereas draws were once intolerable, defeats are now normalised.

Keane used to criticise Ireland for celebrating one big result at a World Cup, now players are praised in some quarters for a big 45-minute performance in the Nations League.