I love Keane's reply to Rat Neville here:
One of the most troubling stories about Roy Keane’s management did not involve him screaming, shouting or karate-kicking the tactics board in the dressing room, as Dwight Yorke has described so vividly in his forthcoming autobiography.
No, it was the tale of a Sunderland party when all the players and families were invited to bond together on a bright summer’s day. A day when Keane, the man who should have been doing the mixing and making people feel good about their work, is said to have turned up, collected his food and walked across a pitch to eat on his own. Lunch digested, he walked back, dropped off his plate and disappeared, not speaking to anybody between arriving and leaving.
This was a man who could bring intensity and isolation even to a pleasant barbecue party.
The notion of Keane as a brooding loner is not new but it is particularly pressing at a time when his Ipswich Town team sit one place off the bottom of the Coca-Cola Championship with no victories in nine matches.
This is a testing time for the chief executive and the owner. Do they trust that Keane can turn it around? How long, with the fans agitating after a 4-0 trouncing at home to Newcastle United, do they give it before pressing the ejector button?
In the circumstances, the picture painted of Keane by Yorke, and splashed all over a newspaper at the weekend, was particularly unhelpful in its message and its timing, reinforcing as it did the idea that the Irishman is not so much a good or bad manager as plain unsuited to the job.
What else are we to conclude from the horror stories told so graphically by Yorke, which backed up everything we had heard about Keane’s perceived inability to cope, his volatility, when the wheels started falling off at Sunderland.
In reliving those final months on Wearside, Yorke tells of Keane slapping Dean Whitehead, the captain, around the head during a fearsome rant and berating others to the point where their only thought was not for the club, for the team but for hiding in the corner.
At one point, exploding with rage in the dressing room, Keane calls for the tactics board just so he can put a foot through it.
“Paranoia rampaged through the club, players were at each other’s throats and fighting one another; it was disintegrating before our very eyes,” Yorke writes, before adding with comic understatement: “By now I was convinced that club management was not for Keano.”
Yorke knew the man he was dealing with from their years at Old Trafford but even he was shocked by the text response after he had commiserated with the departed Keane: “Go f*** yourself.” It recalled the Irishman’s reply to Gary Neville when the defender sent him his new mobile number many years ago. “So what?” Keane wrote.
There was wit intended but, typical of Keane, it was of the blackest variety.
All of this should destroy that cliché, still being rolled out on one phone-in at the weekend, about Keane’s main problem simply being an impatience with the failings of lower-league players.
That was always a nonsense. At Manchester United, he was incessantly lashing out at players and coaches who were experienced internationals.
Instead, it confirms the notion of the former United great as a man so wound up you wonder how he ever rests. God, it must be hard work being Roy Keane. But he may have more time to himself, and for his dog-walking, if Ipswich carry on the way they are.
As they consider their options, the club will be looking for the telltale signs as to whether the manager is holding it together. In the case of Keane, that is done by more than just results. We used to be able to judge from the length of his stubble. Clean-shaven meant things were going swimmingly, a beard spelt dark introspection.
Now, thanks to Yorke, the Ipswich players have another indicator. When the tactics board comes out, it is time to duck.
No, it was the tale of a Sunderland party when all the players and families were invited to bond together on a bright summer’s day. A day when Keane, the man who should have been doing the mixing and making people feel good about their work, is said to have turned up, collected his food and walked across a pitch to eat on his own. Lunch digested, he walked back, dropped off his plate and disappeared, not speaking to anybody between arriving and leaving.
This was a man who could bring intensity and isolation even to a pleasant barbecue party.
The notion of Keane as a brooding loner is not new but it is particularly pressing at a time when his Ipswich Town team sit one place off the bottom of the Coca-Cola Championship with no victories in nine matches.
This is a testing time for the chief executive and the owner. Do they trust that Keane can turn it around? How long, with the fans agitating after a 4-0 trouncing at home to Newcastle United, do they give it before pressing the ejector button?
In the circumstances, the picture painted of Keane by Yorke, and splashed all over a newspaper at the weekend, was particularly unhelpful in its message and its timing, reinforcing as it did the idea that the Irishman is not so much a good or bad manager as plain unsuited to the job.
What else are we to conclude from the horror stories told so graphically by Yorke, which backed up everything we had heard about Keane’s perceived inability to cope, his volatility, when the wheels started falling off at Sunderland.
In reliving those final months on Wearside, Yorke tells of Keane slapping Dean Whitehead, the captain, around the head during a fearsome rant and berating others to the point where their only thought was not for the club, for the team but for hiding in the corner.
At one point, exploding with rage in the dressing room, Keane calls for the tactics board just so he can put a foot through it.
“Paranoia rampaged through the club, players were at each other’s throats and fighting one another; it was disintegrating before our very eyes,” Yorke writes, before adding with comic understatement: “By now I was convinced that club management was not for Keano.”
Yorke knew the man he was dealing with from their years at Old Trafford but even he was shocked by the text response after he had commiserated with the departed Keane: “Go f*** yourself.” It recalled the Irishman’s reply to Gary Neville when the defender sent him his new mobile number many years ago. “So what?” Keane wrote.
There was wit intended but, typical of Keane, it was of the blackest variety.All of this should destroy that cliché, still being rolled out on one phone-in at the weekend, about Keane’s main problem simply being an impatience with the failings of lower-league players.
That was always a nonsense. At Manchester United, he was incessantly lashing out at players and coaches who were experienced internationals.
Instead, it confirms the notion of the former United great as a man so wound up you wonder how he ever rests. God, it must be hard work being Roy Keane. But he may have more time to himself, and for his dog-walking, if Ipswich carry on the way they are.
As they consider their options, the club will be looking for the telltale signs as to whether the manager is holding it together. In the case of Keane, that is done by more than just results. We used to be able to judge from the length of his stubble. Clean-shaven meant things were going swimmingly, a beard spelt dark introspection.
Now, thanks to Yorke, the Ipswich players have another indicator. When the tactics board comes out, it is time to duck.
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