Soft is the new smart

ROY’S Gone Soft was one tabloid’s take on Mr Keane’s coup in persuading kid of the hour Anthony Stokes to sign for Sunderland.

We can take it, I think it’s safe to say, that the headline wasn’t sent to the manager’s office in the Stadium of Light for clearance.

Keane may indeed have opted for a softly-softly approach in courting Stokes but there was nothing wishy-washy about the barbs he subsequently aimed at rival clubs for putting what he felt was unfair pressure on the 18-year-old.

“A lot of pressure was put on him by certain people,” said Keane, leaving the rest of us to conclude that among the unmentionables was the man who was only very recently Keane’s own gaffer at Celtic, Gordon Strachan.

“What helped us,” Keane went on, “was that we did not put (Stokes) under any pressure. We didn’t have medicals lined up for him, we didn’t threaten him and it worked in our favour. I just said that we wished him well — whatever decision he made.”

No threats, just good wishes. If only all battles and disputes could so easily be resolved. In order to achieve success, they say, you should speak softly and carry a big stick. Alternatively, you can speak softly — and be Roy Keane. Big sticks are strictly surplus to requirements when, like Keane, you carry an innate authority. Put it another way: had anyone else been in charge at Sunderland, you suspect that Anthony Stokes might now be plying his trade in London or Glasgow.

Miffed Celtic and Charlton folk may not agree but it’s pretty clear that Stokes has made the smart move. At Celtic, it seemed as if he would have had to join the queue for regular top-flight football; at Charlton, he would have been plunged into a relegation dog-fight that could have dragged him under with the rest of the team.

At Sunderland, he joins a club on the up. Even if promotion proves beyond the Makems this season, it’s likely that they will get into the Premiership at the second attempt under Keane, by which time Charlton may well be looking up at them from below.

With Roy Keane to show the way and demand the highest standards, an affable and wise chairman in Niall Quinn, and a club which is rapidly rivalling Stokes’ boyhood faves Celtic in the Irish connections stakes — cue letters of outrage! — it’s hard to think of a better home than Wearside for the rising Dublin hotshot.

But ‘rising’ is the operative word, as noted this week by John Hughes, the man in charge at Falkirk when Stokes crashed into the headlines with a remarkable 16 goals in 18 games, including three hat-tricks.

Said Hughes: “I know that expectations on Stokesy will be high on Sunderland. He is a fantastic player but there is plenty of coaching left to do on him and I would urge Sunderland to give him a chance to mature. People should not forget he’s only a kid.”

The point is certainly not overlooked in this here neck of the woods, seeing as how it’s only two years since Stokes was scooping our Junior Sports Star award for soccer. At that stage, he was making waves at international under-age level and banging ’em in for Arsenal youths but there was no guarantee he would make it to the next level.

And until that loan move to Falkirk, there were genuine concerns that Stokes had become marooned in a limbo at Highbury, where Liam Brady was a fine mentor but Wenger was the man who really had to be impressed.

Steve Staunton received a bit of flak for saying that Stokes appeared to have gone “backwards” at Arsenal but allowances should have been made for the Irish manager’s typically loose turn of phrase. In essence, he was absolutely right. In football, at Anthony Stokes’ age, if you’re not progressing you might as well be going in the opposite direction, which is why the wider world only really woke up to his talents when he got the opportunity to move to Falkirk and, suddenly, his reputation accelerated at a rate of knots.

It being the flavour of the year just ended to damn Staunton at every turn, the Irish boss also received criticism for not reacting to Stokes’ goal-spree by playing him against San Marino in November. While there may not have been much merit in bringing Stokes into Dublin for half a ‘B’ game the night after he had played 90 minutes for Falkirk, the decision not to parachute him straight into the senior squad was reasonable. Of more importance against the Group D minnows, surely, was that Robbie Keane get back onto the goal trail and Kevin Doyle break his international duck — both of which targets were duly accomplished on the night.

But now things have moved on. With his move to Sunderland, Stokes is entering a new and demanding phase of his career and one which should definitely be rewarded with a call-up to the senior squad for next month’s game in San Marino. By the time of that match, the Dubliner will hopefully have found his scoring touch at Sunderland but, even if he hasn’t, San Marino away would offer the prospect of a more negotiable debut for a young player than the hype and hysteria surrounding the visit of Wales to Croker.

Roy Keane has shown the way: soft is the new smart.