SOCCER/ROY KEANE RETURNS TO MANAGEMENT:ROY KEANE returned to football management with Ipswich Town yesterday and delivered a brutal assessment of the achievements of Manchester United's much-vaunted "class of 1994", stressing that none of his former team-mates can consider himself a true success in the dugout until he wins a trophy.

Almost five months since he severed ties with Sunderland, and with resentment clearly still smouldering at perceived interference from the Wearsiders’ hierarchy in team affairs during the latter days of his reign, Keane signed a two-year contract with the Championship club to replace Jim Magilton and offered little indication that he has mellowed during his brief sabbatical from the game.

There was a verbal attack on his former Republic of Ireland team-mate, Tony Cascarino, for doubting he would return to the game, and a claim that his employers at Sunderland had “moved the goalposts” to prompt his departure from the Stadium of Light after 27 months in charge.

Yet the honesty with which he assessed the generation of young managers who have emerged from Alex Ferguson’s Double-winning side of 1994 was particularly refreshing.

Asked what qualities the likes of Steve Bruce, Bryan Robson, Mark Hughes, Paul Ince and Keane himself must have possessed to have become “successful managers”, the Irishman retorted: “Who are the good managers you are talking about? Sparky and Brucey have not won a trophy, have they? They have potential, but anyone can have potential. Steve Bruce has had a good season, but Steve Bruce has been manager how many years [11]? Sparky did a brilliant job at Blackburn, but is facing different challenges at Manchester City. We are all facing different challenges.

“Until an ex-team-mate of mine from 1994 goes on and really achieves something, then I would not agree with what you are saying about [any of them] being a successful manager. You need a bit more than some of those managers have achieved yet. I believe I can potentially be a good football manager. I have done nothing in the game yet.

“I did okay at Sunderland, but I want to do better than okay. I’ve set my bar high by coming to Ipswich and looking to win something, but do you want me to set a low one? That’s part of me. Anyone I’ve ever respected wants to achieve something in their lives.”

Keane might have achieved more himself at Sunderland only to become disillusioned with life in the north-east of England following the arrival of Ellis Short as majority shareholder at the club. The 37-year-old stressed “the time had come” for him to depart, though bitterness at the fracture remains.

“One of the big conditions I had when I went to Sunderland was that there would be no interference with team affairs,” he said. “But when someone tries to move the goalposts . . . It is nothing to do with contracts, it is about a promise with people at the club.

“I was disappointed because I had signed a three-year contract and the three-year plan was on target, despite two or three poor results. Believe it or not, the results at the end had nothing to do with it. You have got to be relaxed and have trust in the people you are working with. I must have said it when I met Niall [Quinn] and the owners of the club about 5,000 times, that I would do it my way, particularly in team affairs. You might be better asking Niall or Ellis Short the reasons why I left.

“You have to respect the people who run the football club, as I did at Sunderland. But when people are telling you what you should be doing with the team, where you should be living, what days you should be in, it’s over.”

Some questioned whether he would return to management following his tempestuous departure from the Stadium of Light. “You have to wonder who’d want him now when he has walked again,” Cascarino wrote at the time, adding he would be “amazed if he got another job in football”.

Keane retorted: “I would not give him the time of day. I am quite happy to comment on people’s opinion in football I respect, but Tony Cascarino is a man I certainly do not respect for a lot of reasons, and if I told you, you would be shocked. So the day I worry about Tony Cascarino will be a very sad day of my life.”