Upbeat Martin O’Neill stands by Roy Keane

Martin O’Neill was in the Aviva Stadium press room yesterday to mark the announcement of SPAR as the official convenience store partner of the FAI, writes Liam Mackey.

Given the way his assistant manager had been at the centre of some unflattering headlines over the previous 48 hours, the strong temptation was to open the questioning by asking if Roy Keane had now become the official inconvenience story for the Ireland manager.

In fact, O’Neill had come prepared to deal with the inevitable, so much so that when the first query actually turned out to be an icebreaker about Ireland’s Euro qualifying campaign to date, the Derry man feigned disappointment and, referring to the FAI media officer seated beside him, brought the house down by quipping: “I’ve lost my bet with Peter...”