According to Keane, the secret of success is nothing special, which will come as a relief to Sunderland, with whom he signed a three-year contract as manager last week. His management will be as basic as his playing style. When the man who went on to become a Manchester United icon is reminded that great players rarely make great managers, he replies: “Well, that’s fine, because I was never a great player. So you can throw that one out the window.”
The trouble with great players, so the theory goes, is that they struggle to inspire in others what came naturally to them. There are exceptions, such as Franz Beckenbauer, but the German World Cup winner worked only with gifted internationals. It wasn’t so easy for Bobby Charlton, Geoff Hurst and the countless others who started at the bottom, and stayed there.
Keane was not born with greatness, but however much he protests, he was able to achieve it, and knows how it was done. He didn’t so much learn new tricks as try to do the old ones better. When he was a teenager in Cork, others were taken to English clubs on trial, while he was left behind to work on his game. As a manager, he will not transform Liam Lawrence into Liam Brady, but he should know how to maximise his potential.
“That’s what I hope,” says Keane. “As much as I can knock myself about the lack of skill I had, I worked my socks off. If footballers give 100% to their team, they get their rewards in terms of having a long career at a good level. Do your best and you’ll be all right. If not, then there will be problems. If there are people not prepared to come in and give 100%, hopefully I’ll be quick to work that out. I have a good eye for that.”
The 35-year-old wonders if too much is demanded too soon of people such as him. While the only way is up for Sunderland, Gareth Southgate is already under pressure at Middlesbrough. “Maybe, for managers who have played to a very good level, expectation is a lot more than it should be,” Keane says. “When you look at the top managers, such as Alex Ferguson and Steve McClaren, they have started at smaller clubs and worked their way up. They are probably given a bit more time. Expectation from the top players, of themselves as well, is probably unrealistic. My own expectations are realistic.”
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Keane has a plan for Sunderland that does not reflect his reputation as one of the most volatile, often violent, players the game has known. Only by changing the small things does he hope to alter the bigger picture. The midfielder who was always an astute reader of the game promises evolution, not revolution. While his pulling power enabled him to sign Dwight Yorke, David Connolly, Graham Kavanagh, Liam Miller, Stanislav Varga and Ross Wallace on deadline day, Keane says there is no shortcut to the top. In his 12 years with Manchester United he saw various coaches come on pilgrimages to Carrington, their training ground, only to find the epiphany they expected was not forthcoming. “They used to be disappointed,” he recalls. “They thought, ‘Is that it?’ We just did possession games.
“I’m sure Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough will go down among the five greatest managers of all time, but believe it or not, Brian Clough kept things very, very simple. I’m not trying to play down what he did, because there was a genius behind it, but his ideas were very simple. I have always said football is a simple game. I will try to simplify things.”
Keane, whose first match will be at Derby County on Saturday, is the latest in a long list of players to become managers after working under Ferguson. Gordon Strachan, Alex McLeish and Mark McGhee were in his team at Aberdeen, while Steve Bruce, Mark Hughes and Bryan Robson served him at Manchester United. “Maybe it’s because they learnt a hell of a lot from the manager and they thought they could give it a go, but there are no guarantees,” he says. “If you think you are a decent player, and you think that’s enough, you can forget about it. I learnt that from the coaching courses. It’s useful, but you have to keep an open mind. At a big club such as Manchester United, the danger when you win lots of games is that you think this manager stuff is easy. But there are plenty of players from United, or other big clubs, who didn’t make it. You need to have realistic targets.”
Of the proteges, Keane is perhaps most like Hughes, an independent, stubborn competitor possessed of an intelligence that is rare in footballers. Despite his unparalleled devotion to the team ethic, he was never one of the lads, which makes for an ideal combination in the dugout. Keane, though, insists that his presence and the instant attention that he is likely to command in the dressing room, will not be enough at Sunderland.
Ferguson, Arsène Wenger, Jose Mourinho and Rafael Benitez had to earn respect. As did Martin O’Neill, who was an earlier product of Clough, but earned it from his achievements at Wycombe Wanderers, Leicester City and Celtic. “That (personality) gets you so far, but the top players need more than that,” says Keane. “There has to be substance. That’s maybe why some top players come up short as a manager. You think that you have enough, and that your team will be happy to meet you and work for you. But good players will ask questions. ‘Why are you playing this way? Why are you training that way?’ I was like that, always looking to pick holes in it. But now it’s the other way round.”
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They are second from bottom of their division, but Sunderland’s players are not without attitude. Apart from the win against West Bromwich Albion that coincided with Keane’s arrival, their first in six matches this season, the new manager had one of them badgering him almost as soon as he reached the training ground. It reminded him of a lad he once knew. “I was thinking, ‘God, I must have been a nightmare’.”
On Wearside the reaction to Keane’s appointment has been mixed, partly due to his lack of experience, partly due to a temperament that deals badly with adversity. He admits that the line he frequently crossed as a player will have to be toed more often as a manager, but it is asking a lot to find diplomacy and forgiveness where once there was brutal honesty and retribution. Already he has said sorry to his chairman, Niall Quinn, whom he once described as a “muppet”, and to Ferguson, for criticising the United squad in a television interview. But Alf-Inge Haaland is unlikely to be added to the Christmas card list, and Mick McCarthy need not expect an apology when his Wolves meet Sunderland at Molineux on November 25.
Keane at least understands the need to be more political than he was in Saipan four years ago, where his criticism of McCarthy’s set-up cost him his place at the World Cup finals. “It is harder for a manager, but I hope I can learn from the experience I have had. I had a scenario at the World Cup where you just felt things weren’t right, but I was a player then, now I am a manager. It’s about getting the balance right. You want the players to respect you — not necessarily like you, but respect you — and if I can do that, we have half a chance.”