Roy deflects criticism with pie in Sky rant
Last week he had a dig at TV pundits, the same ones who will soon be putting him under pressure unless he ends our three-game losing streak pretty soon.
The gaffer blasted Sky’s Richard Keys and his panel of so-called experts, saying he “wouldn’t listen to these people in the pub, and yet they’re on television constantly.”
I’ve commented before about how intelligent Keano is and you have to wonder if this is another masterstroke he’s pulled off by deflecting attention away from him at a time where our season is starting to look grim.
I can imagine him now: “So we lost our third game in a row? It’s a crisis? Who you gonna believe, them or me?”
He was at it after the Chelsea game as well, a match in which Keane made a complete mess of his team selection, picking half-fit youth striker Martyn Waghorn ahead of €10m-rated French international, Djibril Cisse. So who did Royston blame the defeat on? It certainly wasn’t himself. He spent most of the following week flattering Chelsea, Lampard, Joe Cole and anyone else he could think of.
I’ve heard rumours that the Stamford Bridge tea lady quit as she was the only CFC employee he didn’t lavish any praise on.
Going further back, instead of arguing with FIFA Vice President Jack Warner regarding Dwight Yorke, he simply called the bloke ‘a clown’. It was a complete character assassination and meant we were immediately on Roy’s side without even listening to any of the reasons. I must admit I think Roy’s right in that a lot of TV experts are vastly under-qualified to talk about the game and it’s nice to see someone fight back against them.
But I’d like to see him do his talking on the pitch though.
If the first half of last weekend’s game against Portsmouth had been a boxing match, it would have been stopped at the interval. It’s a long time since I’ve seen a Sunderland side dominate a top-flight team so much.
We weren’t putting Portsmouth under constant pressure, but our one-touch passing was an absolute joy to behold and the only thing that cost us the game was not getting a second goal to kill them off before the break. If Kieran Richardson’s first-half fizzer had been a few inches left we’d have won, it’s that simple.
One worrying aspect of last weekend was the work rate of our two strikers, Cisse and Murphy. Daryl Murphy is one of the victims of the Stadium of Light’s boo boys despite chasing lost causes and being full of running. It must be demoralising for the lad to know how un-appreciated he is at Sunderland.
In comparison, Djibril Cisse is worshipped, yet the amount of running he does off the ball would make my granddad look active. Whether it’s some sort of clever energy conservation ploy or he’s just lazy, I’m not sure, but it’s infuriating to watch at times as he spends the majority of games stood with his hands on his hips.
A word of sarcastic praise is due to Portsmouth’s travelling fans. The current FA Cup holders are enjoying a decent run in the UEFA Cup as well as being a top-half Premiership side packed with internationals. It’s the sort of success we dream of at Sunderland. How many fans did they bring to the Stadium of Light, then? An embarrassing 189.
Pompey were more streetwise in the second half and sat back, breaking off our attacks and although they didn’t deserve anything out of the game, they did exactly what any experienced Premiership side does and won the hard way. After nearly two years in the top flight, Keane needs to cut out the daft mistakes and start winning undeserved points like Tony Adams did.
No matter how good our football was last weekend, I’ll have to resort to some pundit talk here, sorry Roy. It’s a game of results and you don’t get any extra points for being pretty, so we need to start chalking up some wins.
A victory in the Carling Cup would be nice, but out of our games against Blackburn this week I’d much prefer three league points.
* Martyn McFadden
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