A bad day for Roy Keane, an even worse day for Sunderland.Keane's two and a half year romance with the North East club has come to an end but there's no 'other woman', no errors of judgement. The relationship has just gone stale.
Is it the right reason? Only time will tell but for me, it's not. The psycho-babble emanating from Keane after the Bolton defeat was odd and a final nail in the coffin. 'Manager Roy' is an act, a far cry from his actual persona. He cuddles up to the press (perhaps with the notable exception of Richard Sadlier), cooing and oohing to them, attempting to fit in. All he does though is stand out. The 'honesty', the 'nice guy', the altar-ego. 'Manager Roy' is not a real person. It's a figment of an imagination and someone who's never looked comfortable playing the part. The real Keane is the snarling, downbeat perfectionist with the intense stare. The ex-manager of Sunderland was theatre, a constant performance. Has Keane been living a lie for the past two and a half seasons? Perhaps, but once again, we'll never know.
This was a very Keane-like thing to do. It seems rash, ill-timed and badly managed. Similarities will duly be drawn between Sunderland 2008 and Saipan 2002 but it's unfair to be so simple with the analysis. Dig deeper though and an interesting pattern emerges. With Ireland, Keane felt like he was in an untenable position and that his character had been forever stained. Personnel clashes aside, Keane felt that if he stayed, he was a hypocrite. With Sunderland though, the decision was not forced, no personnel clashes have been apparent and in Niall Quinn and the rest of the board, Keane had allies - making the Sunderland boardroom systemically different from the vast majority of their Premier League counterparts. Keane would like to think he has taken the moral high ground and walked away from Sunderland for the benefit of the club but, like Saipan, there are no benefits here. No one is rewarded in this situation - his decision has negative consequences for his team and supporters alike. In both scenarios, six years apart, Keane decided that his actions were selfless and in true anti-hero style, benefitting every one else but him. Unfortunately, he's been wrong both times.
Keane 'the player' lambasted his fellow team-mates who wilted when the pressure was on, when the big game passed them by. As a youngster when playing underage for Rockmount in Cork, Keane's mantra of 'the bigger they are, the harder they fall' eradicated his own reservations about his compact physique. This mentality served him throughout his career, particularly when laying the foundations at Nottingham Forest. Making his debut at Anfield and brushing off Steve McMahon early in the game was never intimidating - he had worked hard for this and wasn't going to let it pass him by. And he never did. Newcastle, St. James' Park, February 1996. Juventus, Stadio Delle Allpi, April 1999. Portugal, Lansdowne Road, June 2001.
Now however, he has settled for second best. He has wilted under the pressure and not stood up to the fight. Sunderland are far from being in an unredeemable situation. Just five points currently separate the club from the top ten and a quick glance in the direction of Roy Hodgson and Gary Megson and Keane would've seen the consequence of one defeat in five games. Are we led to believe that the current squads of Fulham and Bolton are better than that of Sunderland?
We're going to hear an awful lot about Keane's transfers over the next few days and the majority of it will be nonsense. In actual fact, the amount of money spent by Keane on this group of players is fairly reasonable considering their promotion two years ago and their TV rights. Some signings were incredibly questionable but other managers have bought far worse while at far bigger clubs. The acquisitions of Djibril Cisse and El Hadji Diouf were clever - troublesome on the pitch, guaranteed to enrage the opposition but, reliable. Diouf was one of Bolton's most effective performers last season, missing just 4 league matches for Bolton. Ciise meanwhile was prolific in France with Marseille and has scored some very important goals for Keane already this season. It's at the back where Keane has struggled badly and he needed someone a little more authoritarian than Anton Ferdinand in August.
The upshot of all of this is that Sunderland will struggle now. Many people said that the club were in a relegation battle but picking up six points in their next four games would see them rocket up the table and the Xmas fixture list has been very unkind to some clubs currently in the bottom half of the table. Sunderland though had a couple of very nice games to look forward to after United this weekend - West Brom at home, Hull away and Blackburn on Wearside. Six points from those games was very achievable but now, any point will be a bonus. A lack of stability and familiarity coupled with the 'bedding-in' period for the new manager and Sunderland will run out of time very quickly. At least two more players will arrive in January with at least two going in the opposite direction and things could turn messy very quickly.
For Keane, the future looks uncertain. He'll look at himself in the mirror tomorrow morning and tell himself this was the right decision. He'll take Triggs for a walk and maybe ask him for his take on things and he'll tell his Master the truth for he might be the only one who knows who the real Roy Keane is.
