Keane to team: get nasty

By: Lucas | November 13th, 2007

Roy Keane. Say the name to most British football fans and you will get one of two responses:

One (from Man Utd or Sunderland supporters, or Irish folks) will be gushing with praise for his talent and tenacity, his ability to will his teams to victory, his extreme loyalty, etc.

The other response will contain lots of four-letter words that begin with “F” and “C”, and probably won’t contain the phrase “what a great guy” (especially if we’re getting the response from Alf-Inge Håland).

Love him or hate him, it is impossible to deny that Keano as a player had a certain bulldog obstinacy that at times bordered on dirty play (and, maybe, at times, crept over that border).

Roy Keane as a manager is, unsurprisingly, cast in the same mold as Roy Keane the player. In the wake of last weekend’s disappointing home derby draw agains the mags, a game in which Sunderland were the better side and missed a number of maddeningly close chances, Keane tells the Irish soccer website eleven-a-side.com that Sunderland’s players “…need a bit more experience, a bit more nastiness. We have to be a bit more streetwise.”

Fair enough, I don’t think any Mackems right now will doubt the man who brought the team from the bottom to the top of the League Championship last season. Keane’s first season as a manager in the Premiership isn’t going as well, but then again it isn’t going as poorly as the last two times around for SAFC in the top flight (both of which set the record for awfulness). We’re not at the bottom of the table and we’re certainly not playing bad football. If the players take Keano’s message about being “more streetwise”, combined with a bit less shit luck, I believe we’ll see the Black Cats up around 10th place in the table by season’s end.