Source: Daily_Mail
Keane: Why I had to walk away from Sunderland and football
Roy Keane has finally revealed why he walked out on Sunderland, blaming a stand-off with majority shareholder Ellis Short and a deteriorating relationship with chairman Niall Quinn. [LNB]But, proving that he has not lost his talent for controversy, Keane does not stop there. In his first interview since his resignation in December, he confesses to making mistakes in the transfer market and in his dealings with players, but he points the blame squarely at Irish-American financier Short for his unexpected and hasty exit from the Stadium of Light.[LNB][LNB] Keane not able: Sunderland boss making his excuses[LNB] Sbragia: I had to throw out the 'bad apples' at Sunderland[LNB]ALL THE SUNDERLAND NEWS FROM ACROSS THE WEB[LNB]He also hints that his coaching staff at Sunderland were not up to scratch and were too close to the players. [LNB]But he insists that the bitter experience of his exit has not put him off management and he would be prepared to take charge of another club outside the Premier League.[LNB] Finally, in an extraordinary outburst, Keane brands his former Sunderland player, fellow Irishman Clive Clarke, 'a clown' and admitted that when he was told the player had suffered a heart attack while on loan at Leicester, he said: 'I'm shocked - I didn't know he had one.' [LNB]Quinn and the Sunderland hierarchy, who watched their team's goalless draw at Arsenal yesterday, are furious with their former manager. [LNB]But that is unlikely to worry Keane, who says the dynamics at Sunderland began to change after Short took a controlling interest of 30 per cent last September. [LNB]Following the 4-1 home defeat to Bolton in November, which turned out to be his final game as manager, Keane had a heated exchange with Short after failing to return his calls the previous day. [LNB]'It started with a demand to know where I had been the previous day; that he wanted me available at all times,' said Keane. 'It was the second day in my career as a manager that I had ignored calls. It was disappointment; same as after the Everton game [the 7-1 defeat last season]. [LNB]'Then there were accusations about how often I came in; about moving my family up. And it was the tone. It didn't upset me, what happened at Sunderland. [LNB]'It was a business decision. Even for me, I suppose it was a business decision, I couldn't give my heart and soul with this fella on my shoulder. That, I'm sure, is how he works.' [LNB]Short was apparently perturbed that Keane was still commuting from Cheshire, where he lives with his wife, Theresa, and their five children, rather than having moved nearer the club. [LNB]Keane added: 'I'm happy to move house, happy to go anywhere. I would be happy to manage a Championship club. I'm not tied to Manchester. I'm from Cork. [LNB] Happier times: Quinn and Keane[LNB]'If we had found something right for us, we would have moved to Sunderland or nearby. I felt I was able to travel, though, because I'm not a player any more, physically I am not on the pitch every day. I was never going to be on the training ground every day. That would have been bad for me and the players. And while it worked, it worked.[LNB] 'Niall doesn't live there, the new owner doesn't live there. I wish I'd said, "You move up and I'll move up. And Niall, too. We'll all move in together, sure, and see how that goes". [LNB]'We had sat down with him a couple of times, Niall and I. I went down to London to meet him twice. I thought, hmm, the dynamics are changing here. He said he had read my book. I felt he was thinking from the start that I wasn't for him. He sort of knew this wasn't going to be a long-term relationship.' [LNB]Keane also felt that he had lost Quinn's backing with the squad, a situation that finally blew up after the defeat by Bolton. [LNB]He did take Quinn's call the following Monday. [LNB]'Niall would say, he was chairman, we lost 4-1, he had to make the call,' said Keane in an interview in the Irish Times. [LNB]'Fair enough, but he was talking to me about the players needing to come into work with a smile on their face. That really concerned me. The day I walked into Sunderland, putting a smile on the faces of well-paid players was the last thing anybody wanted me to do. Players had been taking the piss out of the club for years. If they wanted them smiling all the time, they should have employed Roy Chubby Brown. My question to Niall was "Who are you listening to here?" [LNB]'It wasn't Niall. It was the undercurrent. Where it was coming from. Smiles on players' faces? It's my job to get them training well. There was good spirit. That's what had kept us in the Premiership last year. Our spirit. That got the alarm bells ringing. Without a shadow of a doubt. The American fella would have been on Niall's case.' [LNB]After he left, Keane could not believe some of the things other managers and former players were saying. [LNB]He said: 'Tony Cascarino says he will never work in management again! He never signed his new contract! He's grown a beard! He was remote. He was isolated. He had lost the plot. A beard, for God's sake! Does he think he is Jesus? [LNB]'Alex Ferguson. my old manager comes out and says, "You never know what he is going to do next". What did he think I was going to do? Go backpacking around Mexico? I have five kids. Football is in my blood! I'd just had enough at Sunderland. Things had changed. End of bloody story.' [LNB] Backpacking? Keane perplexed by Sir Alex Ferguson's comments[LNB]Keane did, though, shoulder the blame for errors in the transfer market, although he believed he had little choice. [LNB]'When we came up we had 13 or 14 players. You'll sign anybody who will play. I would be giving contracts to players I didn't rate that highly. I needed the bodies. You learn. Every manager does. There's an image of me as being intolerant of anything different to what I would have done late in my career, but I rolled with things.' [LNB]Despite the sour end to his experience at Sunderland, Keane still feels the club were moving in the right direction when he was at the helm, although he does allude to a breakdown in communication with his coaching staff in the final few weeks. [LNB]'If a player comes to complain to a staff member - and they do, because footballers can be moody bastards and I was one of the worst - you want the staff member saying, "Look, keep your head down, shut up and get on with it in training". [LNB]'They can't be saying, "I'd have you in my team. He's not been in for two days, so how does he know how good you were today?". You can't have your staff man wanting to be mates. I think in retrospect there was a bit of that. [LNB]'A year before I got them I could never have talked to the Malbranques or Cisses. You build bit by bit. Hang in there until you have your nucleus of seven or eight on longterm contracts, and they will be the lads you will depend on and who will make your team and your club. [LNB]'If you are left out of the team, you will be grumpy. I certainly was. If you have two or three pissed off, you have a chance. If you have seven, eight or nine of them pissed off? Well, the atmosphere changes. I knew that was an issue. I knew come January a few of them would move on though. [LNB]'One day I get Yorkie [Dwight Yorke] texting me from an international game asking can he miss a league match the following week because he has business to take care of. No!' [LNB]Keane has no fond memories of his former player Clarke, recalling a match at Stoke, where Clarke had been a player. [LNB]'I swear he actually thought he was Stanley Matthews coming back to them . . . kissing everybody. He got back on the bus with presents for his baby, delighted with himself. He went on loan to Coventry, and on a night we got beaten in the cup by Luton, the staff came in and said he had had a heart attack at Leicester. I said, "Is he OK? I'm shocked they found one, you could never tell by the way he plays". [LNB]'Clarke goes and does a piece in some newspaper telling the world that I have lost the dressing room. He wasn't there! How does he know? Clown!' [LNB] [LNB]
