Roy Keane is very easy to dislike…
And that’s why I’ve always liked him.
But as Ipswich Town slide further into trouble, the knives are well and truly out for their controversial manager.
Other than the steadily increasing boos at Portman Road, it has been a tumultuous few weeks for Keane. On one hand Dwight Yorke, Piers Morgan et al. have led a press massacre, whilst on the other he was declared the second richest manger in British football.
But regardless of the rhetoric and media glare, Keane possesses a rare characteristic. He simply doesn’t care what people think.
Whether this ambivalence results in his downfall or becomes the key to future success remains to be seen. He’s already been given the dreaded vote of confidence by the Ipswich board, who would do well to follow through and give him more time.
Aside from the tabloid ramblings of Yorke and predictable prattle of Morgan, the general sway of opinion seems to be that Keane is just too arrogant and opinionated. There is no doubt he has a mouth on him, but how much of a surprise is this given that Clough and Ferguson are his major managerial influences?
It wasn’t long ago that Keane was seen as the rightful heir to both. At Sunderland his outspoken nature was called honesty and eccentricity. But jump forward two years and he is labeled as downright nasty.
The truth is that Keane is probably somewhere between the two. Striking a balance between the hard-nailed edge and self-confidence required to lead a group of footballers. This is why his false start at Ipswich is such a surprise. Of all the young managers in British football he looked best equipped to succeed. And in Ipswich it looked like he had found the perfect ‘low key’ setting.
Unfortunately, ‘low key’ is not a phrase often uttered in the same sentence as Roy Keane. His personality alone is enough to court the spotlight, and for a man who values his privacy, he has generated a huge degree of controversy throughout his career.
In contrast to a Mourinho whose outrageous statements have a psychological function to relieve pressure from his players, when Keane says something he means it. Right or wrong, his exit from the 2002 World Cup was a demonstration of his unbending conviction in his beliefs, whilst ‘prawn sandwich-gate’ and accusations against underperforming Man United team mates demonstrate the courage to stand behind them.
Given the nature of his departure, it would be easy to lose perspective on Keane’s achievements with Sunderland. With no prior managerial experience, he took the Black Cats from second bottom in the Championship to the Premier League in his first season, and left the club significantly better off than when he joined.
It would have been all too obvious to walk into a mid-table Premier League outfit after Sunderland. But Keane opted to build something at Ipswich. And whilst no one would have anticipated such a woeful start to the season, rebuilding does take time.
Keane’s famous uncompromising honesty was on show recently when he suggested he could have been lucky at Sunderland and was possibly “being found out” by recent results. But amidst Ipswich’s failings bad luck has played a part, with late goals costing them five points in their last four matches. With their next six games against teams in the bottom half of the Championship, Keane will be itching for the end of the international break.
The likelihood is that Roy Keane will turn things around in the short term at Portman Road. But it’s his temperament that will have the biggest bearing on his future success. He has demonstrated with Sunderland and Ireland that he is not afraid of walking away. This is something he will need to get over in order to fulfill his potential. Let’s hope his current club provides him the opportunity to do so.
