Proud Keane ‘hurting’ as time running out

IPSWICH manager Roy Keane admits he is feeling the pain as his side face into a relegation battle after their sixth straight Championship defeat.

Keane says his side’s lengthy run of defeats is hurting him “unbelievably”, but has vowed to fight on. Saturday’s 1-0 reverse at Preston was the Tractor Boys’ sixth successive league loss and saw them drop to 18th in the Championship.

Keane feels deeply hurt by his team’s alarming slide towards the relegation zone after their promising start.

“Unbelievably so,” he said. “You wouldn’t believe how much it’s hurting, but you could try and guess. I’m a proud man and I don’t like getting beaten.”

Ipswich started the game brightly and might well have been in front with Jason Scotland and full debutant Rory Fallon both missing decent chances.

Preston took over after the break with Canadian international Iain Hume netting the only goal in the 50th minute in the final match of his loan spell from Barnsley.

Keane was clear where his side’s problems lay: “We had good possession, we got into threatening positions, particularly in the first half and at the start of the second, but we don’t seem to be capable of scoring many goals, and that puts you under pressure constantly.

“And, repeating myself once again, we gave a soft goal away. It’s not as if teams are opening us up. After that we huffed and puffed without having that quality in the final third to get us back in the game.”

Ipswich chief executive Simon Clegg backed his manager at Tuesday’s club AGM, but even so Keane, who believes he can still turn things around, accepts that he might not be given the time to do so. “It’s out of my hands,” he said. “Don’t ask me questions I’ve got no control over.”

Preston boss Darren Ferguson, a player with Keane at Old Trafford under his father Alex, said he was sure the one-time Manchester United skipper would be able to cope with the current situation: “I don’t have to worry about Roy. He’s a very, very strong character and I’m sure he’ll be fine.”

Ferguson senior, who has three young players currently loaned to his son’s club, watched the match from the directors’ box.

Afterwards, Keane, who abandoned plans to take on an assistant manager earlier in the season, hinted at a possible change of mind when asked whether he had a mentor: “No, I should get one.”

But that may not now be an option with fans calling for a change of boss and unlikely to be happy with mere additions to the current regime.

Keane, with the greying beard familiar from the latter stages of his spell as Sunderland manager increasingly evident, is in no doubt about the seriousness of Ipswich’s current malaise.

“That’s nine defeats in 11,” he said. “I’ve been involved in football since I was eight or nine years of age, whether it be at amateur level or semi-professional, I played with top players at Forest, United and Celtic, and with good players at Sunderland.

“The run we’re on is not acceptable, let’s not kid ourselves. Forget about giving time or mentors or getting players who are streetwise or getting injured players back. That is a poor run in anyone’s book.”