Sugar daddy given Short shrift as Keane uses ‘box office’ value again

IT’S a shame that arguably the best result of Ricky Sbragia’s managerial career to date wasn’t anywhere near good enough to be classed a success. A draw away to Arsenal would usually be a great result but when it comes on the same day as Roy Keane tearing away the hierarchy of your club it would have taken a mighty handsome win to steal the attention from our former boss.

Credit must go to Ricky for a well-won point against the odds, but questions are once again going to be raised about the ownership of our club, something that both Keane and Quinn seemed eager to try and explain last week. Niall’s take is that American billionaire Ellis Short came on board as the Irish investment hit a stumbling block during the recession, but Sunderland AFC is still owned by the Drumaville consortium.

Keane reckons that Short was very involved and held several meetings with him to discuss the future of the club and suggested that Drumaville had little or no say in what goes on at the club any more. Short was also ringing Keane on a regular basis trying to find out what was happening. After the 4-1 defeat at home to Bolton last November, Roy’s finale as Sunderland manager, he chose to ignore the American, which later led to a rebuke from Short. Over-zealous, but it’s not that unusual for an employer to want to be able to speak to an employee when the shit hits the fan.