Keane takes another dugout hit

IF THE bookmakers are to be believed then Roy Keane’s next move could be into international management, with the Corkman, who was sacked by Ipswich Town yesterday, quoted at just 5 to 2 to be in charge of some national team by the end of next season. The prospects of it coming to pass seem more remote, however, than those odds would suggest.

Instead, Keane seems more likely to get his next crack at proving himself in the management game from another middle-ranking club owned or run by someone who is still a little star-struck in the presence of one of the modern game’s greatest players. Even as the Ipswich chief executive Simon Clegg confirmed the Irishman’s departure at a press conference yesterday morning he described Keane as an “awesome” individual.

After a second unsuccessful stint in the dugout, though, the 39- year-old’s reputation as a manager doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the one he earned for himself as a player with Nottingham Forest and, of course, Manchester United. The win ratio during his 18-month spell in charge at Portman Road was one of the worst since the miserable season-long reign there of Jackie Milburn back in the early 60s.

The former Newcastle and England centre forward, one of countless outstanding players down the years to fail in management, never did get another job.

Keane, on the other hand, seems bound to, as long as he hasn’t grown tired of the reliance on others that the role necessarily entails. But he may have to show signs of having learned a few lessons from his opening two outings if he is to get much beyond the initial sounding out stage next time around.

At Portman Road he leaves behind a squad almost a third of which is Irish and around a sixth of which had formerly been with him at Sunderland. There had been reports of problems with various players and concern amongst the supporters over the highly erratic quality of the players he bought in as well as the basis on which some of the more consistent performers were allowed to go.

It’s not quite Sunderland, though, where he left behind a squad of more than 40 players, many of whom had been brought in hastily on well-paid, long-term contracts so as to rapidly secure promotion to the top flight – something that was achieved impressively – but who then could not be offloaded even after Keane had made it abundantly clear they were no longer to his liking.

As it turned out, quite a few of their replacements quickly fell into that bracket too.

For all the problems there, though, he did leave Sunderland in the Premier League, while Ipswich are lower now in the Championship table than they were when he took over in April of 2009.

His record of a 15th place finish in his first season followed by 19th now, three points above the relegation zone is – it would have to conceded – fractionally inferior to that of his predecessor Jim Magilton who some people felt was hard done by when he was sacked to make way for Keane.

The success of his team in the League Cup this year had gone some way towards deflecting attention from its disappointing form in the Championship but the quarter-final defeat of West Brom in early December had come against a background of four straight defeats and it has been followed since by a run of just one win and a draw from a further five outings.

With Chelsea to come in the FA Cup this weekend and Arsenal after that in the semi-finals of the League Cup, it seemed likely there would soon be nothing for the club to focus on bar the scrap to avoid being sucked deeper into relegation trouble and so, as Keane has many times suggested they might, his employers decided to take action.

“It is a sad day for Ipswich Town and for me on a personal level,” said Clegg yesterday. “We wanted to give Roy the time to get the team right to improve the situation, but the performances since November have not been good enough, as he has said himself.

“We would like to thank him for his professionalism over the past 20 months and the dignified way he has handled this difficult situation. But the lack of results speak for themselves. Ultimately results have to rest on shoulders of the manager and, as Roy has said himself, the table doesn’t lie.”

Keane, meanwhile, expressed “huge disappointment” at leaving Portman Road.

“Results haven’t been as good as I’d have hoped so far this season,” he said, “and when results aren’t good the manager gets the sack, that’s the game. However, I have a genuine belief that we were making progress and that the players have what it takes to turn this season around.”

It is a disappointing end to a story that started with Keane perhaps foolishly targeting promotion during his first year at the club, while suggesting that any “half-decent manager” could take them up over the course of the two he was supposed to have been employed for.

Even allowing for his previous success at the same level, it appeared to be tempting fate on much the same scale Paul Jewell had by more or less promising Derby fans the previous summer he would engineer their immediate return to the top flight following relegation. Instead, he was gone by the year’s end as the team struggled badly.

Still, Jewell’s two years out of the game may be about to end for he is widely believed to have been lined up to replace Keane and by yesterday at lunchtime the bookies had stopped taking money on him being appointed.