Keano the manager failing to match Keano the player

There has long been a belief that great players will go on to make great managers. It is perhaps even more probable that great captains will go on to be great managers. However, we have all come to realise over the years that neither of them things happen to be true all the time.

Career

The likes of Arsene Wenger and Jose Mourinho have shown that you do not have to have had a particularly auspicious career on the field to go on to greatness in the technical area. One manager once famously said ‘you don’t have to have been a horse to become a great jockey’!

Roy Keane was a great player. The thirty-nine year old Irishman spent twelve years at Manchester United where he won seven Premier League titles, four FA Cups and a Champions League. Along the way he picked up player of the year awards and induction into the English football hall of fame.

Not only did he achieve all of that, he gained the reputation of being a captain who drove the team on and helped his manager get the very best out of the players around him. It seemed almost certain that he would go on to become a successful manager after his playing career ended back in 2006.

Encouraging

The initial signs were encouraging to say the least. He took over the Sunderland job in August 2006 with the side having suffered four consecutive defeats and sitting in the Championship relegation zone. He completely changed the playing staff, instilled discipline into the club and took them to the Championship title that season and into the Premier League, picking up the Championship manager of the year trophy on the way.

All of the predictions about Keane’s managerial prospects seemed to have been immediately confirmed as accurate.

The first season in the Premier League, 2007-08, saw Sunderland fighting against relegation. They achieved that feat with two games to spare and Keane was given a great deal of credit for managing to keep them up.

Disappointing

The 2008-09 season saw Sunderland get off to a disappointing start. Despite some positive performances, including a 2-1 victory against local rivals Newcastle United, the team’s general form was inconsistent at best. By the end of November, Sunderland were eighteenth in the Premier League, having lost five of their six previous games. Keane stood down as manager on 4 December. His unwillingness to stay and fight seemed totally out of line with the spirit he had displayed and demanded as a player.

Keane had four months out of the game until he took the role of Ipswich Town manager in April last year. In his first full season at the club hopes were high but an awful start saw the side fail to win a game in their first fourteen. There were rumours of Keane being dismissed but the Ipswich board stuck by their man and things gradually improved. They finished a disappointing season in fifteenth place.

For Keane to keep what was left of his reputation, and his job, intact it seemed clear that this season had to be an improvement on last. After a promising start, it seems that improvement is not on the cards. A series of poor results has seen Ipswich slip down to sixteenth place and a humiliating 4-1 defeat at local rivals Norwich on Sunday might just prove to be the final straw.

Sung

The famous old chant of, ‘There’s only one Keano’ was being sung at Norwich on Sunday but it was being sung mockingly by the Norwich supporters. That is a sad reflection on how the mighty has fallen.

After the game Keane seemed to be sending the same sort of messages he was sending just before he walked out on Sunderland.

“We don’t look like a team that is capable of going on a good run.”

Cheerier

He didn’t get any cheerier in his assessment of the position.

“For a month now I have been saying that we are only a few points off the play-offs. But the gap is only getting wider, we have a tough run of games coming up and we have a lot of injuries.”

When asked about his future Keane said he was staying, although his body language may have suggested otherwise.

Analyse

“I analyse my position every single day and I am just going to try my best to turn this around. You have to keep going.”

That remains to be seen and it also remains to be seen whether the Ipswich board will show the same amount of patience they extended to him last season. It is likely that Keano’s days at Ipswich are numbered.

Whether you like the man or not it is a real shame to see him in this position after a fantastic playing career and being the man that Sir Alex Ferguson once said, although he later back tracked on it, that he wanted to replace him at the top at Manchester United.