Stokes urged to tame his inner tyro after last-gasp winner

IT was a stark warning from one who knows, and Anthony Stokes would do well to take heed.

In his confessional moments, Roy Keane has spoken of the lifestyle change he made to save his playing career.

So when the Sunderland manager tells the tyro Ireland striker Stokes that, if he fails to cotton on he could be playing at non-league level in “four or five years”, the message is delivered with authority as well as purpose.

Keane curtailed his own corrosive carousing after the first of his two infamous tangles with Alf-Inge Haaland left him with a cruciate injury.

Stokes, whose injury-time goal on Saturday gave Sunderland a vital victory over bottom club Derby, is only 19 and his suggestion that he would be celebrating his heroics with “a nice quiet night in” was firmly tongue-in-cheek.

Keane alluded to Stokes' liking for nightlife with a jokey reference to The Glass Spider, dubbed one of Sunderland’s “hottest late bars”.

But Keane was deadly serious when he said: “He's a young man who can go as far as he wants. He could be a top, top player or he could be playing non-league in four or five years' time. He'll go one way or the other, I'm sure.

“I could say that about a few of our players, they could go one way or the other. Stokesy has the potential, but it's about producing it and maintaining it. The frustration from young players is inconsistency.

“Great examples of players going one way or the other: Ryan Giggs, consistent top player for years. Others could be world stars and they disappear.

“It's my job to bed Stokesy in and get the balance right. He's a young man, simple as that. I was his age and everyone makes mistakes.

“The obvious pitfall is The Glass Spider in Sunderland.

“He's got to be careful and he's got to work extremely hard and listen to the good staff we have here who are always encouraging him to get in the gym and do his stretches. I've no problem with him, he's very rarely injured.

“It's important his family look after him and me, his manager, I've got a role to play, but you can't follow the modern player 24 hours a day.''

Stokes found himself in the cold last season when he was one of three players who missed the team bus for a game at Barnsley.

But Saturday was a late show with a difference. Having come on as substitute for the injured Carlos Edwards 12 minutes from time, Stokes employed the goal instinct that won him a €3million January move from Arsenal [he scored 16 in 18 games on loan at Falkirk] when he hooked home on the line after Derby keeper Stephen Bywater had made a double save.

It was Stokes'’ first Premier League goal, and he admitted: “I'm delighted to break the duck and get the result, which is the most important thing. I'm always positive when I go on. I don't think you're going to do well if you have the wrong attitude.

“I always try to focus if I'm on the bench on what impact I can make on the game and, even if I'm asked to play on the wing as I was this time, I always try to get into attacking positions around the box to see if I can sneak a goal.

“I didn't get the best of starts when I came here, not after the thing with missing the bus. But, to be honest, the gaffer told me two days later that it was forgotten and over with.

“The thing is, I still keep reading about it and I'll probably still be reading about it when I'm 30. I have to accept that, but that's not my whole story. I've kept my head down, worked hard and kept pushing myself. Obviously, what happened was a big wake-up call, but it's old news. Hopefully, now people will start writing about me for all the right reasons.

“I'm still only 19, and hopefully over the next two or three years I can start scoring a few more goals and get my confidence up. Hopefully, I'll also get more starts. It's a great experience being at this club and training every day with lads of the calibre of Andrew Cole, Kenwyne Jones and Michael Chopra.

“It does help being versatile, and that's something the gaffer likes, so I leave that up to him. There are plenty of players in the squad who can play in other positions and, if the gaffer wants me to do that, I'm more than happy.”

SUNDERLAND (4-4-2): Ward 7, Halford 6, McShane 6, Higginbotham 5, Collins 6, Edwards 6 (Stokes 78, 7), Whitehead 5, Leadbitter 6 (L Miller 83, 6), Wallace 6, Cole 7 (Chopra 64, 5), Jones 6.

Subs not used: Gordon, Harte.

DERBY (4-4-2): Bywater 7, Griffin 7, Moore 6, Davis 6, McEveley 5, Teale 6 (Leacock 84, 5), Oakley 8, Pearson 6, Barnes 5 (Fagan 71, 5), K Miller 6 (Earnshaw 86, 5), Howard 6.

Subs not used: Price, Mears.

REFEREE: Mark Halsey (Lancashire) 6: The experienced official ran the game reasonably well until needlessly booking match-winner Anthony Stokes for his goal celebrations.

MATCH RATING: ** Two struggling sides were never going to make this a classic and it was only the diehards who would have stuck with it to the bitter end.