NO APPOINTMENT YET

Last updated : 25 August 2006 By Editor
From the Guardian:

Roy Keane remains on course to become the next manager of Sunderland and is fully expected to sign a contract for at least three years in the coming days, but there may be no formal announcement of his appointment until next week.

Reports that Brian Kidd is to be installed as Keane's assistant are premature, with Kidd believed to be discussing the logistics of working in Sunderland with his family.

Negotiations between Keane and the Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn are ongoing and sources close to the deal said yesterday that there is nothing sinister in the apparent delay. But as of last night a contract had not been signed and until it is Sunderland and Quinn cannot rest easy.


Also from the Guardian, by Rob Smyth:

Keane's dealings with his new chairman Niall Quinn will certainly be interesting if he takes the Sunderland job, but it is his relationship with his new players that really makes this one of the most fascinating appointments in modern football history.

The prevailing wisdom is that Keane's sole tactic will be to hit underperforming players with a blast so vicious as to make Sir Alex Ferguson's hairdryer feel like a gentle breeze in the desert. It is a horrible oversimplification.

While Keane's attacks of rage are likely to be random and brutal, there is so much more to this incredibly complex man, a compelling fusion of forensic intelligence and pathological yearning. Quinn knows this. He could become the most intriguing manager in English football since Brian Clough.

Or he could be a total disaster. Clough was at Leeds for 44 days and Nottingham Forest for 18 years, and you suspect that Keane may similarly be all or nothing. Having spent much of his career in extremely exalted company, he may find it difficult to work with players who struggle to get the ball from A to B at the best of times, never mind with a 90% success rate.

His pursuit of excellence will be maniacal, unflinching, more mentally gruelling than anything any of these players will have ever experienced; they are standards that would challenge the Brazil 1970 side, never mind a team that has just lost to Bury.

It will take a strong character to want to work for Keane, never mind succeed, but to turn down the chance would be like walking away at the end of Lost In Translation. You would forever wonder what might have been.

There is something of Martin O'Neill about Keane - a simmering, forensic, Clough-taught Irishman whose disciples would go to the ends of the earth for their man. It is entirely conceivable that he could imbue his Sunderland team with an irresistible force. The Black Cats may be about to morph into cornered tigers.

One thing they won't be is headless chickens. Forget the sporadic rage blackouts; Keane likes his footballers cool and clinical. "They say God is in the detail; in football that's true," he wrote in his autobiography. "Sometimes games are won by a magical goal - that's what people remember. But the essence of the game is more mundane. Detail. Wearing down the opposition. Winning the psychological battles - man on man - from the moment the ref blows the whistle for the first time."

To many Keane is a law unto himself, but to him all that matters is what he calls the Law Of Cumulation. "First tackle, first pass, first touch, everything counts. A lot of little things add up to the thing that matters: breaking the opposition's hearts - but first their minds, their collective mind."

It was Clough who taught Keane these principles. "Every football match consists of a thousand little things which, added together, amount the final score. The game is full of bluffers, banging on about 'rolling your sleeves up', 'having the right attitude' and 'taking some pride in the shirt'. Brian Clough dealt in facts, specific incidents, and invariably he got it right."

In many ways, Clough is a more relevant reference point for Keane's managerial career than Sir Alex Ferguson. There is the inscrutability, the wild and random mood changes - and the unconditional love for the only tool of the trade that matters, the football.

For all Keane's obvious qualities, his appointment remains an almighty gamble - particularly given that, last season, Quinn said he thought Keane would not make a good manager. Nobody has a clue how it's going to turn out. But it's going to be fun watching.