As Manchester United’s players yesterday jogged through their first training session in the aftermath of David Moyes’ sacking under the tuition of some familiar faces, the sceptre of another — one Roy Maurice Keane — was hovering over the Carrington training ground.

ALL farewells should be sudden, Lord Byron once said but Roy Keane’s departure as Sunderland manager came as no surprise in one of the Corkman’s old watering holes.