Roy may face a messy Wearside divorce

LAST weekend saw a football first. I’ve had lots of pals get married during the football season, but I’ve always picked the match ahead of the wedding.

Generally, Sunderland have let me down.

And I’ve fallen out with mates by watching us draw at Port Vale (Patrick and Susan, August 1995), alienated my family in a miserable away trip when losing 4-0 at Reading (David and Lucy, October 1997) and upset a mate whilst watching us being out-muscled at home to Oxford (Peter and Claire, April 1994).

For once, I thought I’d follow my head rather than my heart, and found myself in a plush hotel in the middle of a Durham forest on Saturday afternoon (without a mobile phone reception), rather than my seat at the Stadium of Light. Thankfully Sunderland didn’t make me regret my decision, with a performance so poor that Roy Keane’s future is now starting to grab some serious headlines.

Things seemed to start well. As the father of the bride started his speech, news filtered through that Cisse’s smart finish had put us a goal up after 10 minutes.

By the time the groom toasted the bridesmaids, we were 2-1 down and things weren’t looking so good.

It was the toughest best man’s speech in history, then, getting up to entertain a crowd of 300 Mackems whose side are 4-1 down at home to Bolton Wanderers.

Keane’s quotes after the game aren’t unlike the sort of thoughts you should keep inside your head just after exchanging vows.

Thinking of calling it a day? Not sure how much longer you’ll stick it out for?

They’re the sorts of things we may occasionally think, but they certainly shouldn’t be said aloud.

Can you imagine Wenger, Ferguson or Scolari coming out after a bad run and saying: “Things aren’t too great, I might jack it in on Monday, I’ll see how I feel.”

I’m sure the likes of Djibril Cisse, lured to Sunderland after Keane sold him on the concept of ‘Project SAFC’, can’t have been too impressed to hear the following negative quote from the gaffer after the final whistle.

“I ask myself every single day if I am the right man for Sunderland. I asked myself this morning and said I was. Tomorrow morning if the answer is ‘No’ we will have to look at it... I might wake up on Monday morning and think I’m the right man. On Tuesday it might be different.”

I don’t want Roy to leave Sunderland.

It’s a long while, probably the only time to be honest, that I can remember Sunderland having a manager with a profile that is high enough to attract top class players and pip many other clubs to the post to sign the likes of goalkeeper Craig Gordon, Anton Ferdinand, Pascal Chimbonda and Steed Malbranque.

But when I eventually managed to get a signal on my phone late on Saturday night, many of the most pro-Keane supporters I know had sent me texts saying he had to go.

If Roy Keane isn’t sure whether he’s the right man for Sunderland AFC, you can imagine just how varied the arguments in Wearside bars are.

On one hand, we have an inspirational figure who has turned the club around in his two years at the helm.

On the other we have someone who has wasted a lot of money in the transfer market, appears at times to have very limited tactical nous and has a team currently playing with the sort of cohesion that suggests a lack of any sort of dressing room spirit.

Some decisions on Saturday really rankled.

Why was Anton Ferdinand, an £8m (€9.4m) signing who has only had one bad game for the club since arriving, demoted to the bench?

Why was the entire back four messed around just to incorporate Pascal Chimbonda’s return?

How come we were robbed by yet another dubious refereeing decision? These things will no doubt remain a mystery for now.

At the moment, regardless of Keane’s mood swings, he needs to take a long look at the facts.

He’s spent £75m (€88m) building a Premier League team that is sitting in the relegation zone and has lost six out of the last seven games.

There’s no excuses for that, we’ve a squad that have stayed largely fit and suspension free, although the manager has continued to tinker.

We’ve gone from scoring late goals to conceding them and the weird wedding between Roy Keane and Sunderland may well be edging its way slowly and messily towards the divorce courts.

* Martyn McFadden www.a-love-supreme.com