Business as usual for Roy

‘FOOTBALL Man Gets Football Job’ — as screaming headlines go, it does admittedly lack the zing of ‘Keano’s Back’ or even ‘Tractor Roy’ but if ever the words “Roy Keane” and “routine appointment” could be said to co-exist peacefully in the same sentence, then his arrival at Portman Road provides the appropriate context.

Of course, they’ll hardly ever have seen the likes of it in East Anglia — “I didn’t know there were so many radio stations in Ireland” said a local newspaper man yesterday — but then, wherever Roy goes, the media follow in droves. That much we’ve known for almost as long as the Corkman has been in the game.

But Roy Keane’s second managerial appointment is still strikingly different to his first, altogether more business as usual than business unusual. After all, his entrance into management on Wearside was truly sensational involving, as it did, the burying of the hatchet with Niall Quinn and, at least as seen from these shores, the transformation of Sunderland into that novel entity, SundeIreland. Other much anticipated bridges were duly crossed — the handshake with Mick McCarthy, the return to Old Trafford to face Alex Ferguson, and his periodic dealings, even if threadbare, with another Saipan opponent, Steve Staunton, when the latter was manager of Ireland.