Coppell: Keane target Hunt staying put

TO BE rated by Roy Keane is an accolade few would scorn but for an Irishman it is the highest form of praise. Yet for Steve Coppell, the Reading manager, Sunderland’s pursuit of Stephen Hunt was the opposite of music to his ears.

Keane’s bid of £2.5million (€3.7m), faxed to Berkshire the day before the Royals began 2008 with a 2-0 home defeat to Portsmouth, was always going to be rejected but Coppell was adamant it should have remained a secret.

‘‘I would like to go back to the old way of doing business where you phone people up and that verbal communication is the end,’’ Coppell said. ‘‘They didn’t do me any favours. I would like to think we would do business in the old-fashioned way.

‘‘There is no way Stephen Hunt will be leaving this club at this moment in time. He is typical of what we are about. He is a free transfer from Brentford, someone that has something to prove on a game-by-game basis and as far as I am concerned has been one of our key players for 18 months.’’

The winger from Waterford buzzed about the pitch in his usual belligerent fashion yesterday but it was always going to be in a losing cause; Ibrahima Sonko’s red card before the game was five minutes old had doomed the home side and although Niko Kranjcar failed to convert the resulting penalty, numerical superiority told in the end.

A dreadful error by goalkeeper Marcus Hahnemann gifted Pompey a ninth-minute lead, with Sol Campbell applying the finishing touch for a rare goal after the American dropped a cross on to the head of Papa Bouba Diop. Reading rallied gamely for the first portion of the second before John Utaka made the points safe.

The African out-paced Reading left-back Nicky Shorey and had no difficulty rounding Hahnemann to locate an empty net. By that time Reading were also running on empty and Shorey especially; the England man’s festive period had been spent suffering from a stomach bug.

The result gave Pompey their seventh success on the road and no other Premier League side has tasted more away victories. Their home form remains their Achilles heel of course — they haven’t won since September when it ended 7-4 against Reading.

‘‘If we had won our fair share of home games we would sitting on the top of the league now,’’ mused Pompey boss Harry Redknapp. ‘‘But I’m delighted with what we have done’’

The wheeler and dealer will now turn his attention to bringing in a couple of new players — either frees or loans — to fill gaps left by their four African Nations Cup absentees.

Sonko, whose felling of Benjani was his third spot-kick gift in his last four games, will be joining them as part of the Senegal squad.

READING (4-4-2): Hahnemann; Murty, Ingimarsson, Sonko, Shorey (de la Cruz 71); Hunt, Cisse, Harper, Convey (Bikey, 9); Doyle (Long, 83), Kitson.

PORTSMOUTH (4-5-1): James, Johnson, Campbell, Distin, Hreidarsson; Utaka, Diop, Hughes (Lauren, 83), Muntari, Kranjcar (Taylor, 90); Benjani (Kanu, 63).