Roy Keane says he hopes he’s a better manager after completing his first year in charge of the Blues. The Irishman took over at Town a year ago today, signing a two-year contract.
Keane said: "Hopefully, I’m a better manager for the experience of the last year. Hopefully, the players and the staff are too.
"It’s been a difficult season in terms of the setbacks we’ve had, even at the start of the season.”
The Blues boss feels that the 14-game winless run ended any serious hopes of a play-off push: "The start to the season that we had obviously set us back. Not winning for the first two or three months gave us a massive mountain to climb and we’ve not been able to do it.
"The second half of the season has been much better, as you’d have hoped and expected.”
Keane wonders whether last season’s strong finish might have led to some complacency in the squad: "Maybe we just thought it would happen because we finished the season OK, winning the last three games.
"We’re under no illusions for this summer, it’s going to be a tough season, but we have to do better and we have to be competing in the top six for most of the season, we’re well aware of that. Anything less than that, won’t do.”
Looking back, the former Ireland skipper says there ought to have been a greater turnaround in players during the close season a year ago: "I probably should have made more changes last summer, believe it or not. I’ll defend my players to the hilt, but I just think we lacked experienced players through the spine of the team.”
And addressing that situation is his main aim for this summer: "We need a few more players, a bit more experience in the squad and that’s why I’m hoping to have quite a busy summer in terms of trying to get some experienced players in our group.
"You’ve seen that with teams like Newcastle, you need that experience to get out of the Championship and we’ve lacked that.”
Keane says he didn’t spend quite as much money as is often claimed during his first year: "I’ve had good backing [from Marcus Evans], but there always seems to be this myth with me that I’ve spent fortunes. I don’t think I’ve spent that much since I’ve taken the job. We’ve wheeled and dealed like everybody else, moved two or three players on.
"I’ve stuck with players who have been here for the last two or three years. I don’t think that was necessarily the right thing to do, but you live and learn. I know exactly what we need and I know exactly what we don’t need.”
Keane says he will move quickly to bring in his targets as soon as the season is over but warns fans not to set their sights too high when assessing who might come in: "Don’t be expecting Ronaldos to be walking through the door.
"We’re obviously interested in one or two good, young attacking players, but also experienced players in important positions which we’ve struggled with all season. We’ve never quite recovered from one or two injuries and one or two setbacks.
"I’ve got four or five players in mind and, hopefully, I will have an idea in the next week or so whether we’ve got any realistic chance of getting them.
"When the season finishes next week, we can make enquiries. One or two of these players’ contracts might have expired anyway. So, we’ll see, but you’d like to think the players we’re interested in would have a few options, so there’s a long way to go yet before we can start relaxing and feeling we’ve got these players signed.”
Scunthorpe frontman Gary Hooper, Cardiff’s Michael Chopra and Southampton midfielder Simon Gillett are understood to be amongst the players Keane could look to bring to Portman Road.