Keane’s stature not tarnished, insists Delaney

DAMIEN DELANEY has defended Roy Keane and insists his former manager’s reputation should not be tarnished by his failure at Ipswich.

Keane was dismissed last week after a run of seven defeats in 10 games, which saw the former Manchester United midfielder’s side slip to just three points above the relegation zone.

And the response to the Irishman’s sacking has been marked, with Ipswich following up Sunday’s horrendous 7-0 defeat at Chelsea with a shock 1-0 victory over Arsenal in their Carling Cup semi-final first leg.

But Delaney insists that Keane put everything he could into the job at Portman Road and was simply unfortunate that results did not work out as he would have wished.

“It was sad to see Roy go because he was honest and his heart was in the right place,” said Delaney. “But for some reason it just didn’t work out. You can’t fault someone when their heart is in the right place and I think his was.

“If you look at all of the performances under Roy, the effort was always there and we always ran around and tried our best all be it we didn’t get the results we were looking for’’.

And Delaney has warned Arsenal that his side will take a leaf out of Jose Mourinho’s book as they attempt to hang on to the slender lead they were given by Tamas Priskin in the first leg of their semi-final on Wednesday.

Delaney and fellow centre-back Gareth McAuley were superb against Arsenal, and the former Cork City star will be looking for more of the same at the Emirates on January 25.

And the 29-year-old is well aware that he could add to his two international caps if he impresses Giovanni Trapattoni against the likes of Andrey Arshavin and Nicklas Bendtner.

“As Mourinho said, if we park the bus in front of the goal at the Emirates (Ipswich can win),” he said. “We have something to hang onto but they haven’t won a trophy in a few years and I’m sure they will be breaking out all of the big guns to beat us.

“There’ll be another huge performance out of the lads again and you never know, maybe we’ll end up in Wembley in February. Arsenal weren’t at their best but I think we have to be above our best and pray to God that they are somewhere around average.

“I think that’s the only way we’re ever going to get anything against them. And the first leg was one of those nights.”

And Delaney admits that the pain of being beaten 7-0 by Chelsea was an added incentive at Portman Road.

He added: “I think we wanted to do well but Sunday was the biggest (motivating factor) really. We shouldn’t have been turned over for seven — no professional team should let that happen, be it by Chelsea or whoever.

“But now we have something to go to Arsenal with and we want to hang on to it.”