CRISIS AT SUNDERLAND: ROY KEANE recently defended Cristiano Ronaldo's desire to swap Manchester for Madrid last summer with heartfelt passion. "There's a lot of talk about loyalty in football," he said. "But when clubs want you out, they'll get you out."
It seemed a bleakly cynical assessment from arguably the best midfielder of a generation, but Keane was presumably reflecting on his own, brutally sudden, departure from United in 2005.
As suggestions Sunderland's manager has three games in which to save his job intensified last night, the parallels between that exit from Old Trafford and his current plight looked increasingly pertinent. Both predicaments were provoked by the self-destructive streak now threatening to end a managerial career which, weeks ago, appeared sufficiently promising to see the Irishman installed in Alex Ferguson's office one day.
Keane and his old manager are on warm texting terms these days, but Ferguson had no compunction about showing United's erstwhile captain the door after a never-broadcast diatribe on MUTV in which Keane scathingly deconstructed some of Old Trafford's younger players.
This inability to accept that compromise can sometimes be a good thing is now jeopardising the 37-year-old's relationship with Niall Quinn, Sunderland's, until recently, sympathetic chairman.
Quinn took himself abroad on Sunday on a mini-break to provide "think time" to ponder solutions to a crisis that has seen Sunderland lose six of their last seven games. Apart from the spectre of relegation, this dismal run has prompted Ellis Short, the club's new principal shareholder, to ask some awkward questions. Short, a Dallas-based Irish American financier, is not prepared to tiptoe around Keane's sensibilities as other members of the Drumaville consortium, which owns Sunderland, seem to be.
The manager is said to have recently stormed out of a meeting with Short and Quinn after the American had the temerity to inquire why he had not signed a new contract to replace the agreement due to expire in June. Short also questioned the merits of some of the players Keane bought for more than €83.6 million in just over two years on Wearside.
He has been afforded considerable transfer market latitude and personal autonomy but may now have to accept being placed on a shorter rein. This week he will meet Quinn and Short before outlining a manifesto for arresting a losing streak which looks likely to continue at Manchester United on Saturday. Defeat is unlikely to prove fatal, but Keane knows he cannot afford subsequent reverses at home to West Brom and away at Hull and may be tempted to change his modus operandi.
An anti-authority authoritarian, he is infamously hard on players with poor time-keeping yet is absent from Sunderland's training ground more frequently than many managerial counterparts.
Quinn has said he is happy for his manager to spend part of a typical week with his family in Cheshire, as continuous exposure to the club would "blow" Keane's mind. If his self-destructive streak was largely tamed when, late in his career, Keane gave up alcohol, he cannot resist dallying with danger in the transfer market.
Not content with assembling an overblown squad - which numbered more than 50 in August before a dozen players were farmed out on loan - the Corkman's apparent conviction he can emulate his mentor, Brian Clough, by taming some of football's rebels appears misplaced. Keane swiftly fell out with Pascal Chimbonda and El Hadji Diouf, and Quinn is understood to be concerned Sunderland's manager persistently resists accepting advice.
Paradoxically, this may stem from a surprising insecurity within a shy character whose eloquent, often controversial, media addresses are counterpointed by a determination that journalists and club officials maintain a reverential distance. Keane's reluctance to play the same team two weeks running does not help. He has used 27 players this season, more than any other Premier League manager.
That has proved detrimental to Sunderland's pass-and-move game, while a air of instability was exacerbated by those protracted contract negotiations.
Things just might have been different had he swiftly agreed an extension. But, with talk of signing a fresh deal off Keane's and Sunderland's agendas, both parties are taking it one day at a time.
• Guardian Service
