Keane transfers thoughts to home

NORMALLY AROUND this time of year footballers admit to putting in a fair bit of time watching rolling sports news on TV in order to find out where their friends, or even they, might be playing during the season to come. Events in London over the past few nights, however, have meant a slight shift in priorities for Irish captain Robbie Keane.

“I keep checking Sky News to make sure my house is all right,” he half joked when asked about the rioting that has spread to many areas of the English capital since the initial outbreak of violence in Tottenham over the weekend.

“It’s worrying because my house is about five minutes away. It’s obviously not nice to see it is fairly close to where I live. I hope it starts to calm down before it gets too stupid and it is already starting to get out of control. What else can you say? I hope it calms down.”

Keane, as it happens, might be leaving his north London home before too long with the 31-year-old admitting his time at Spurs is likely to come to an end during the current transfer window.

“There’s a couple of weeks left in the window,” he said. “and it’s probably likely that I will be going. I can’t really answer where it is at the moment. There’s obviously a lot of speculation but there’s still a couple of weeks to go and we’ll see what happens.

“I haven’t turned down anything but I think there’s a few people talking to the club but that’s all I can really say at the moment. I’m sure in the next couple of weeks it will be sorted out. It’s very unlikely anything will happen before the weekend.”

The Irish skipper, whose wages as well as the size of the fee Tottenham were hoping to get for him are believed to have deterred potential bidders in the past, has been strongly linked with QPR over the course of the summer although that was at least in part down to the fact that it was believed he was reluctant to leave London, something he disputes.

“No, I’ll move,” he says. “I don’t know why this story keeps coming out that I want to stay in London. I’ve never said that. I’m quite happy to go anywhere. For me, it’s just about playing regular football and if that’s outside London I’m not too bothered. I’ve scored a lot of goals for Spurs but football is all about the present. When your time is up, your time is up.”

He is, however, determined to stay in the top flight. “Not being disrespectful at all to the Championship,” he said, “but if I got an option to play in the Premiership, I’m obviously going to take that.”