Martin O’Neill unfazed by Roy Keane being centre of attention

Martin O’Neill arrived for his first press conference of 2015 brandishing a fresh batch of gags but the subject matter was much the same as ever: if the northerner didn’t work his routines around Roy, he clearly knows by now, they’d be a good deal harder to work into his meetings with the media.

The northerner seemed generally unconcerned about this latest episode involving his assistant and he cheerfully joked about the fact that somebody from a British tabloid had door-stepped Keane about it on Saturday. O’Neill acknowledged that the actions of the former Manchester United star have the potential to become an issue for him but insisted that they have not so far with the 43-year-old clearly continuing to enjoy both his support just as, the manager made clear, he enjoys having the former Ireland skipper around.

“I can’t say it doesn’t bother me,” said O’Neill after an initial quip about the fact that his press conference, intended to announce the backing of Spar for the FAI’s Primary School Five-a-side programme as well as the association generally, hadn’t actually started with a question about Keane.

Prepared to listen

“Of course it might be a concern but I’ve spoken to Roy about it and, like everything else, I’ve been prepared to listen to what he has said. ‘Mountain out of a molehill’ comes to mind immediately. I think eventually when the whole thing has been investigated that will be the case.

“I have not found Keane’s involvement a distraction and I don’t find it a distraction because that [the publicity he attracts] was always going to be the case. Like anything else, if it was a situation where something might get out of hand, then it becomes a different an issue but those things so far, I haven’t considered distractions.”

Keane, O'Neill insisted, was a popular figure amongst the players and contributes much. "I'm not so sure that Seamus Coleman is actually concerned this morning about whether Roy has had some sort of altercation with a taxi man in Manchester," he said. "I don't think he is too worried about that.

“If you were to ask Seamus, he would say his contribution to us is trying to win football matches which is something he would be in agreement with.”

“I think if you ask the players, ask them about it, about his contribution to us in the last few months, I think they would say it’s been excellent and I think that is what I would be considering most of all.”

Pressed again later on the matter by a particular reporter who, he clearly felt, has recently misreported or unfairly represented the content of an interview he gave BBC radio a few weeks, O’Neill opted to take a detour in order to address that matter instead.

“No. I genuinely don’t mind,” he said about the Keane stories, “because if we weren’t talking about that we’d be talking about something else – about my lack of enthusiasm about the job.

“Let me come to that first of all. I have to say I was astonished. Peter [Sherrard, the association’s communications director] mentioned the word ‘forlorn’ when I think it was ‘full-on’ that I said. I don’t remember using the word ‘forlorn’. It certainly wouldn’t be to do with the job.

Privilege

“Seriously, I am absolutely delighted to be here. It is a genuine privilege to be managing the football club – and it is to me a club in that sense. It is genuinely a really great honour.

“I’m starting to think: am I really that downbeat? I am really full of enthusiasm. I am really looking forward to the job. It would be great if we could qualify.I am well aware that my main job is to try and win the games and for us to try and qualify if we can.”