Angry Keane pulls no punches

REPUBLIC OF IRELAND legend Roy Keane admits he can empathise with managers who have become violent in dressing rooms.

After Tuesday’s defeat at Watford, which leaves Keane’s Ipswich Town 17th in the Championship, the Cork man kept his squad locked in their dressing room for 90 minutes.

He revealed that there were a few “things which had to be said” but agreed that “sometimes it’s good to go a bit mad”. He said yesterday: “I can understand why Brian Clough hit me. Players drive you crazy.

“Anger’s good. It’s good to get angry. It’s an emotion, it’s part of the game.

“If people upset you and you don’t get angry, then I think you’re in the wrong game.

“I think sometimes it’s good to go a bit mad. I don’t throw teacups, I think I’d rather throw punches! Obviously, I appreciate those days are gone, you can’t go around assaulting people.

“But I can understand managers’ frustrations when they fall out with players.”

Keane doesn’t want to make a habit of keeping his team behind for lengthy post mortems, but feels they can be beneficial on occasions.

“I wouldn’t want to keep players in there every week after a game, but I felt there were things which had to be said, whether it was by me or by my staff. Sometimes you have to get it off your chest. We’re all big boys.

“I’ve had a manager punch me before and he was dead right, absolutely dead right. The best thing he ever did to me.”

He added: “It’s not about letting me down, ultimately they’re letting themselves down because they’re talented players. I watch them every day in training. It’s not as if we’re working with amateurs or a pub team.”

Keane says that as a player he was motivated by pride, not just in himself but as a representative of his team and his community.

He said: “I always thought throughout my career I’ve been representing my family and the people I work with. Mayfield, Cork, they were the people I was representing always, never myself. I was lucky I was given the opportunity, but I didn’t get that until I was 18. If you get that opportunity and you feel you’ve lost it, it gives you that desire and hunger, but you only get that from the people you grew up with.”

Contrary to a report yesterday, Keane says no talks are currently planned with Ipswich owner Marcus Evans: “No, not yet, but we know how it works at the club. I speak to the chief executive and I’ve been delighted with the support.”

The Manchester United legend is taking no notice of reports that former Charlton and West Ham boss Alan Curbishley and his assistant Mervyn Day have watched two recent Ipswich matches. “My job is not depending on what the media have to say, who’s watching the match or which managers have been linked with my job. That’s all the media are prepared to write about. Even though they are supposed to be writing match reports, they’re more keen on writing about who’s watching the match.”

Keane is clear what Town need to do to secure his position before the end of the season: “The owner’s been fairly patient with me so far, but we need to get results to get to the summer and take real stock of where we are.

“We don’t speak on a week to week basis, which suits me, I’m not a great one for talking. It suits the owner, obviously I know he goes to the games and we have a chief executive here.

“You’d hope there’s understanding there, but you see what happens with other managers, top, top managers. Good people losing their jobs, depending on whether players fancy it on a certain night. It’s amazing that you have to work in that environment, but that’s why they say you have to be mad to be a manager, and you do.”