Roy happy to leave Ireland call up to boss

Roy Keane is never short of an opinion but, as Ireland’s number two, he was happy to defer to Ireland’s number one yesterday, when the thorny subject of Stephen Ireland raised its head yet again.

“I think you spoke to Martin [O’Neill] about that and he made it clear that he is not shutting the door on any player,” said Keane.

Asked if he was disappointed the Stoke player had not responded personally to O’Neill’s attempts to contact him, Keane replied: “I have not thought too much about it. I’ve not really spoken to Stephen, I don’t know if any of you have, I don’t know what is going on. Martin was the one making enquiries for him.

“I said in previous media that Stephen is a good player and you hope to have all the players available, but it happens in other teams and countries that players don’t want to make themselves available, and Stephen is obviously not at the moment.

“You would have to ask Stephen. The last time I bumped into him was, Jesus, five or six years ago, but other than that I don’t know the ins and outs of it. I really don’t know so I don’t want to be guessing, I don’t want to do that.”

Reminded that, back in 2009, he said if he was Ireland manager he would be prepared to sleep outside Stephen Ireland’s house if it helped to get him back, Keane shot back: “If I was the manager, yeah, but I’m not the manager.”

And he concluded: “Martin has made it clear that he is not shutting the door on anyone but if Stephen wants to get back involved he knows where Martin and the FAI are and hopefully that will take care of itself.”

Meanwhile, Keane yesterday described Louis Van Gaal as a “top manager [with] lots of experience,” who he is “pretty sure” will do well at Manchester United. “They need five or six players but they’ll bounce back, they always do, they’re Manchester United,” he added.