Keane likes to rattle a few cages

THERE MUST be a possibility that Roy Keane thinks Anthony Stokes is not a good listener. Last December Keane offered Stokes a graphic illustration of where the young Dubliner's career could go after Stokes had scored a 90th-minute winner against Derby: "He could be a top player or he could be playing non-league in five years."

Given Stokes was one of the Barnsley Three who missed the bus, and has since been a visitor to the now famous Glass Spider in Sunderland, Keane has reason to doubt his wisdom in spending over €2.5 million on the former Arsenal teenager.

And Keane has shown once again Stokes needs to keep learning if that Derby goal, Stokes' only Premier League goal, is to be the first of many. Keane has done this by giving Stokes a new number for this season. Stokes is Sunderland's number 44; last season he was number 9. Again, graphic.

Can we read too much into that, Keane was asked this week. His reply came in the form of one of those Keane mini-rants that jump-start the day like a gallon of coffee.

"Please don't go down that bloody road," Keane said. "You can read too much into these things and the players are obsessed with these bloody numbers. We don't think Stokesy is a number nine, you can look at it like that.

"Apparently he used to be 44 at Arsenal - allegedly - 144 more like. No, apparently he used to be 44. But I can't understand why these players are obsessed by bloody numbers, and some are. We had a clean slate with all the players and just gave them the numbers we felt were right. I don't think we've got a number 3, I don't think there's a number 5 or a number 9. People can read into that all they bloody want.

"Some players have certain favourites, but we changed the numbers, believe it or not, just to upset certain people.

"All I've heard during pre-season is: 'What's my number, what's my number?' Well, for all your bitching, we're going to give you a different number.

"So that's why. I like to rattle a few cages every now and again."

Stokes can consider his cage rattled and, according to Keane, in pre-season has displayed revived spirit.

Whether that gets Stokes a place in the team that hosts Liverpool at the Stadium of Light this afternoon is in doubt, but one month after his 20th birthday time is on his side. However, if he is not one of the newly-introduced seven substitutes, the message to Stokes is getting louder.