Keane’s talk on the wild side

WHERE would we be without him? Just when you think you’ve exhausted all the Irish managerial possibilities, and the back pages are threatening to show a bare look, up pops Keano to send us all hurtling back into a headline frenzy.

“Roy’s Rage.” Now, where have we heard that one before? The player’s latest state of the Man United nation address sounds like it was well up to form, yet another no-holds barred dissection of an Old Trafford malaise which Doctor Keane has previously identified as a lack of the right stuff among both fellow players and even the fans. This time, he apparently went further, naming and shaming, it is said, among others, Liam Miller and John O’Shea. One quote attributed to Keane about an as yet unnamed player was that “his attitude stinks.” And there was you thinking that the old boy had mellowed.

But before we get carried away, perhaps it’s worth inserting a health warning: unless and until such time as the MUTV tape or an accurate transcript is released or leaked, we can’t be sure of what exactly Keane said. Remember Saipan? Within 24 hours of that behind closed doors meeting, the papers were full of reports stating - as a matter of incontrovertible fact - that Keane had questioned Mick McCarthy’s Irishness. He hadn’t - although what he did have to say was corrosive enough.