LONG BEFORE TODAY’S news of him leaving his role as Aston Villa, Roy Keane has been painted by sections of the media as “a loner”.
Keane, of course, took exception to this portrayal, playing down the fact that he had roomed alone on international duty ever since Denis Irwin left the Irish set-up.
And perhaps it is a somewhat unfair caricature — after all, Keane is not always the grumpy introvert he is often perceived as being. One word that’s often used to describe him in person is ‘charming’ and he seemed relatively at ease playing the role of raconteur at the series of events he attended to publicise his recently-released autobiography.
Officially, the controversial Corkonian left his role at Villa to focus on his duties with Ireland. Yet there is often more than meets the eye with Keane, and reports of a training ground bust-up with one particular player would suggest this instance is no exception.
Even one of his most ardent admirers and one-time ghostwriter, Eamon Dunphy, admits that he “doesn’t like people”.
Another player who Keane frequently describes as one of his best signings in management, Dwight Yorke, wrote in his autobiography: “I don’t think the 24/7 care of a club manager is suited to his temperament. I don’t think he can deal with everything that lands in the tray of a club man.”
This view of Keane as too temperamental for his own good is not necessarily the consensus of course. Speaking today amid the news of Keane’s Villa departure, Darren Bent — who worked with Keane at Villa — said: “If you want to improve as a player and get better you need people to tell you the truth. And he was definitely one for that.”
Keane was unwilling to soften his views for the often bland world of football punditry, and it seems the same is true on the training ground — and Bent’s assertion certainly supports this suspicion.
However, for all the ex-England striker’s kind words, you would have to wonder whether a dressing room full of egotistical millionaires were all so eager to hear Keane’s brutally honest opinions on a regular basis.
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Alex Ferguson, following his retirement, spoke of the differences between players before and after the onset of the Premier League era and the exorbitant finances injected into the game since. Management in modern-day football, he said, was all about being “a psychologist”.
EMPICS Sport
EMPICS Sport
(Keane famously suggested Brian Clough was a better manager than Alex Ferguson)
And Keane, for all his qualities, does not come across as a consummate psychologist.
The Corkonian has also, on more than one occasion, spoken of his frustration with modern-day players. While United would go on to greater heights thereafter, the ex-midfielder described the 1993-94 team as the best he played with, owing to their ability to match up to teams on a technical and more significantly, a physical level. It was a team with plenty of tough characters such as Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes and Bryan Robson — ‘real men’ who could ‘take care of themselves’ on the field in the considerably harsher environment that the football world constituted back then.
And the Ireland assistant boss is not the only one to have reservations about the way in which the game has changed over the years.
Paul Scholes, a former teammate of Keane’s, speaks in his latest Evening Standard column of his failure to empathise with modern-day players and their propensity for play-acting.
Peter Byrne
Peter Byrne
(Keane’s former teammate, Paul Scholes, has a similar aversion to the way modern footballers often behave)
“Eric Harrison, and then later Sir Alex, taught me an important lesson as a footballer: show no pain,” Scholes said. “No matter how much it hurts, pick yourself up and walk away as if nothing has happened. It was not always easy. In the Euro 2000 play-off against Scotland, Don Hutchison went right over the top on me and raked his studs down my leg. I was in agony but I got up and walked away.”
Another former teammate of Keane’s and current first-team coach at Portsmouth, Alan McLoughlin, speaks in a forthcoming interview with TheScore.ie about how modern players are “mentally weak” compared with their predecessors.
Consequently, Keane is ostensibly a man out of time. While he had some success with Sunderland in the Championship, the more high-profile the players he signed became, the worst the results turned out to be.
Keane’s tenure at the Black Cats thus ultimately became so fractious that there were widespread reports of the coach increasingly ostracising himself from the players and appearing less frequently at the training ground in the weeks leading up to his departure from the club.
Back in 1960s and 70s, when the likes of Brian Clough publicly criticising players barely raised an eyebrow, Keane may well have been a brilliant manager.
Yet footballers such as the Corkonian are entirely different to players now. Whereas before, they endured a constant struggle before becoming professionals in the game — working part-time jobs and slumming it at places like Cobh Ramblers in order to pursue their dream — these days, most youngsters are part of a club’s academy before they reach their teens, and few can empathise with the struggle that Keane and many others before him had to endure previously.
Granted, the Ireland assistant has also been part of modern football for quite some time. But old habits die hard, and when he was performing heroically on the field, others were understandably far more willing to tolerate his routine tantrums. At management level though, this type of behaviour is no longer acceptable.
Some individuals, such as Alex Ferguson, are successfully able to make the transition between eras. Yet others, like Keane, will forever be unwilling to play the role of psychologist.
Is Roy Keane too honest for modern-day football?
LONG BEFORE TODAY’S news of him leaving his role as Aston Villa, Roy Keane has been painted by sections of the media as “a loner”.
Keane, of course, took exception to this portrayal, playing down the fact that he had roomed alone on international duty ever since Denis Irwin left the Irish set-up.
And perhaps it is a somewhat unfair caricature — after all, Keane is not always the grumpy introvert he is often perceived as being. One word that’s often used to describe him in person is ‘charming’ and he seemed relatively at ease playing the role of raconteur at the series of events he attended to publicise his recently-released autobiography.
Officially, the controversial Corkonian left his role at Villa to focus on his duties with Ireland. Yet there is often more than meets the eye with Keane, and reports of a training ground bust-up with one particular player would suggest this instance is no exception.
Even one of his most ardent admirers and one-time ghostwriter, Eamon Dunphy, admits that he “doesn’t like people”.
Another player who Keane frequently describes as one of his best signings in management, Dwight Yorke, wrote in his autobiography: “I don’t think the 24/7 care of a club manager is suited to his temperament. I don’t think he can deal with everything that lands in the tray of a club man.”
This view of Keane as too temperamental for his own good is not necessarily the consensus of course. Speaking today amid the news of Keane’s Villa departure, Darren Bent — who worked with Keane at Villa — said: “If you want to improve as a player and get better you need people to tell you the truth. And he was definitely one for that.”
Keane was unwilling to soften his views for the often bland world of football punditry, and it seems the same is true on the training ground — and Bent’s assertion certainly supports this suspicion.
However, for all the ex-England striker’s kind words, you would have to wonder whether a dressing room full of egotistical millionaires were all so eager to hear Keane’s brutally honest opinions on a regular basis.
Alex Ferguson, following his retirement, spoke of the differences between players before and after the onset of the Premier League era and the exorbitant finances injected into the game since. Management in modern-day football, he said, was all about being “a psychologist”.
(Keane famously suggested Brian Clough was a better manager than Alex Ferguson)
And Keane, for all his qualities, does not come across as a consummate psychologist.
The ex-United captain grew up on the Brian Clough school of management – he tellingly once suggested that the former Forest boss was a superior manager to Ferguson.
The Corkonian has also, on more than one occasion, spoken of his frustration with modern-day players. While United would go on to greater heights thereafter, the ex-midfielder described the 1993-94 team as the best he played with, owing to their ability to match up to teams on a technical and more significantly, a physical level. It was a team with plenty of tough characters such as Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes and Bryan Robson — ‘real men’ who could ‘take care of themselves’ on the field in the considerably harsher environment that the football world constituted back then.
And the Ireland assistant boss is not the only one to have reservations about the way in which the game has changed over the years.
Paul Scholes, a former teammate of Keane’s, speaks in his latest Evening Standard column of his failure to empathise with modern-day players and their propensity for play-acting.
(Keane’s former teammate, Paul Scholes, has a similar aversion to the way modern footballers often behave)
“Eric Harrison, and then later Sir Alex, taught me an important lesson as a footballer: show no pain,” Scholes said. “No matter how much it hurts, pick yourself up and walk away as if nothing has happened. It was not always easy. In the Euro 2000 play-off against Scotland, Don Hutchison went right over the top on me and raked his studs down my leg. I was in agony but I got up and walked away.”
Another former teammate of Keane’s and current first-team coach at Portsmouth, Alan McLoughlin, speaks in a forthcoming interview with TheScore.ie about how modern players are “mentally weak” compared with their predecessors.
Consequently, Keane is ostensibly a man out of time. While he had some success with Sunderland in the Championship, the more high-profile the players he signed became, the worst the results turned out to be.
Keane’s tenure at the Black Cats thus ultimately became so fractious that there were widespread reports of the coach increasingly ostracising himself from the players and appearing less frequently at the training ground in the weeks leading up to his departure from the club.
Back in 1960s and 70s, when the likes of Brian Clough publicly criticising players barely raised an eyebrow, Keane may well have been a brilliant manager.
Yet footballers such as the Corkonian are entirely different to players now. Whereas before, they endured a constant struggle before becoming professionals in the game — working part-time jobs and slumming it at places like Cobh Ramblers in order to pursue their dream — these days, most youngsters are part of a club’s academy before they reach their teens, and few can empathise with the struggle that Keane and many others before him had to endure previously.
Granted, the Ireland assistant has also been part of modern football for quite some time. But old habits die hard, and when he was performing heroically on the field, others were understandably far more willing to tolerate his routine tantrums. At management level though, this type of behaviour is no longer acceptable.
Some individuals, such as Alex Ferguson, are successfully able to make the transition between eras. Yet others, like Keane, will forever be unwilling to play the role of psychologist.
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