ON THE back of four wins in five games under Paul Jewell, it would be very easy to lay into Roy Keane and criticise what many would consider to be his failure with Ipswich Town.

Yet, it could be argued that the Blues would not be playing anything like they are right now without the influence of Keane.

During Jim Magilton's reign in charge of Ipswich, you would often leave Portman Road with a feeling of disappointment, in that the players just simply did not look to have put much effort into a game they had lost. The 3-0 defeat to Southampton springs to mind.

Furthermore, Town looked lightweight and not physical enough to match the likes of Wolves and Stoke – both of whom are now playing in the Premier League.

All that changed when Keane arrived.

You could clearly see the stark change in the mentality of the team. Some might even say they looked fitter and more up for the battle. It is true that much of the passing, attractive, 'Ipswich-way' football went straight out of the window – but nobody could ever blame the team for a lack of effort.

Under Keane, David Norris began to flourish. His hard-working, combative midfield play made him the prime candidate for the captaincy of a Roy Keane side.

Then came Grant Leadbitter, Carlos Edwards and Mark Kennedy – players that were not afraid to put in a shift. Indeed, let's not forget Luke Hyam who was brought through and handed a début by Keane.

However, Ipswich Town and Roy Keane were destined to fail. Not because of any fault on the part of either, but simply because they just were not compatible.

Compatibility does not look to be an issue with Jewell. He seems to have slotted in seamlessly, and begun to get Ipswich playing the way the club's fans have missed, and indeed craved, for the last two years.

Since Jewell's arrival at the club, Town have amassed 13 points in six games – the defeat to Millwall seems a distant memory – and many fans look to be forgetting about it all together.

The team has scored 15 goals in the league, conceding only two, and perhaps it is no coincidence that Connor Wickham has five of them.

Keane certainly left a legacy, and there are many positives to come out of his time with the club if you look for them. It is the beginning of a new era now, though, and once this 'honeymoon period' is out of the way for Jewell, fans will soon get a clearer idea of whether he is the man to guide their side to promotion.

William Taylor

naa added 10:54 - Feb 18 I just don't get this. Where's the proof that the players tried harder under Keane? Surely, even with poor management, if the players were so great and they all tried so hard under him we would at the very least been in mid-table. It is a poor division this year after all. So surely they either weren't that great or they didn't try that hard.
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WadzillaBhoy added 16:19 - Feb 18 Vic you are absolutely right Supple got so disillusioned with football because of the attitude at the club with some of the players. They figured if they got promoted they would be out of a job, so why bother. Keano got rid of those wasters.
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Lightningboy added 16:32 - Feb 18 Nice to know you're still keeping busy on here Roy.
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christiand added 18:05 - Feb 18 I have to agree that Keane brought in some capable Championship players but he lacked the managerial skills to get the best out of them and lets be honest we played some dire stuff under his stewardship. If RK was still in charge we would all still be feeling slightly depressed going into this home game with Hull with the high expectation of perhaps a draw at best. PJ has taken over made one good addition to the squad and moved some personnel around and what a breath of fresh air we have the optimism back for matches. I think you have to admit that Jewell has already proved what a superior motivator and manager he is to his hapless predecessor!

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bedsitfc added 18:13 - Feb 18 Can't agree more with this blog, the big problem for keane at itfc was he wasn't experienced enough. If he were to swallow his pride and go to a lower league club and learn his trade he could be a fantastic manager.
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RegencyBlue added 20:56 - Feb 18 Does it really matter? Keane is gone - get over it and move on!
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tom_the_blue added 21:16 - Feb 18 I don't think you can question the fact that Keane did bring in some very good players for this level. His main problem was that he failed to get some of his more expensive buys to play. I think that what Keane wanted was to establish a team full of runners and workers, with a few players of real quality. It was this structure that faired him so well at Sunderland, in his first couple of seasons. His main problem was his inability to fit this players in to the system. Players such as Martin, Priskin and also Edwards are now playing very well in a fairly attacking Paul Jewell side. However, Keane's weaknesses in man-management became evident and his expectation of 100% effort and performance from every single player all the time led to some of these players being dropped, falling out of favour and eventually loaned out in the case of two of the before mentioned. Signings such as Fulop (£1M), Leadbitter and Edwards (£3.5M between them), Priskin (£1.7M), Martin (£1.5M), Delaney (£750,000) as well as O'Connor, Healy and Brown for frees or nominal fees showed that Keane knew a good player when he saw one, he just couldn't get the best out of a lot of them, which would ultimatly be his downfall.

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TractorRoyNo1 added 00:32 - Feb 19 i think you will find that most of the players that we were singing the praises of at Donny were signed by keane, also he brought through some youngsteres, so his transfer dealings were not that bad, i think TWTD worked it out at £3.5 nett and we certainly have more than that on the pitch now Illinoisblue added 00:43 - Feb 18 Transfer dealings? - poor
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NorthStand added 10:44 - Feb 19 So you think that because we go to play with "effort" we should appreciate Keane? Er, I thought the manager’s role was to pick up points, lots of them. This bit also had me scratching my head: “Ipswich Town and Roy Keane were destined to fail. Not because of any fault on the part of either, but simply because they just were not compatible.” Keane himself said he took on the Ipswich job because it is a good club and it felt right. To excuse his pathetic record because he and the club were not “compatible” is a cop-out.

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fourth added 17:12 - Feb 20 One of the major differences between Keane and Jewell is that our ex Manager didn't really like people. In particular players with talent. He seemed to want to stand out as Mr Miserable "You'll never be as good as I was" whereas Mr Jewell clearly is delighted when ANYONE does well and his ego doesn't get in the way. Secondly, Roy Keane was CLUELESS about setting up plays, working out tactics. He lacked FLEXIBILITY, being a very FIXED personality. He could not view individual talent and work out ways of supplying it. Here in France there is much spoken of working on "Les automatismes"...that is putting the work in so that interplay and positioning becomes automatic. This is what is starting only now.

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Parisblue72 added 20:12 - Feb 21 this has to be the most bonkers blog i have ever read.
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julesbda added 14:22 - Feb 22 Horrible 2 years ...he wasted money , sold good players , dropped even better players and had players running scared of making mistakes . There really were no positives from his reign . I travel 8,000 miles a few times a year to watch and i'm so happy he has gone ....last game i saw was coventry at home and he made shocking decisions as a manager . he played one up front ...went 2-0 down ....brought on connor and we scored .....great ....we had chance after chance and we really looked like we would win ..then he takes off peters and townsend who were creating all the chances and we never had another kick on goal !! RK really sees the game from another angle .... i for one am glad to see him go .i had nothing against him except he turned my lovely football club into a joke and turned fans against fans ...

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carlynorm added 21:33 - Feb 22 I think jewell is makin a good impression on the town... GD BLOG! :-)
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Vexorg added 16:53 - Feb 23 Sorry have to disagree as well. He spent a fortune on fees and wages and left us with a mid-table defence, midfield and forward line. We competed for the first half last night until the real quality player - Bullard - got tired. This squad needs four or five similar quality additions to be properly challenging next season and by challenging we need to be looking at top 2 as we did every year under Burley. Looking at that QPR side I can't think of one player who wouldn't walk into any other Championship side with the exception of the two strikers and perhaps the Cardiff/Forest/Scum forward lines

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