| [Blog] Finger Pointing In The Ruins Written by tractorboykent on Monday, 16th May 2011 16:07 When Simon Clegg announced Roy Keane as the new Ipswich manager at the end of April 2009, he described the ex-Sunderland man as a ‘winner’. The appointment was seen by some as a coup (in the words of the Mail’s Des Kelly "a wonderful" one at that and "a tremendous statement of intent by the new regime at Portman Road") but by others as scant justification for the disgracefully merciless way in which Jim Magilton was removed to make way – allegedly by phone to him as he was at the bedside of his sick mum. Clegg, as the public face of money man Marcus Evans, delivered the news and will therefore be most associated with the decision and the outcome. Two years later, with Keane’s disastrous reign hopefully becoming an increasingly distant memory, the focus of fans’ disgruntlement has shifted towards Clegg. Keane’s combustible temperament was seen as a necessary (chemical) element of the toughening up of a side that had, under Magilton, fallen short of the top six position considered a minimum achievement. There was talk of a soft underbelly and the suggestion that Keane was the man to fix it. But why? No one denied that he had aggression both on the pitch and as a manager but surely much more than that was needed. Magilton had never lacked aggression or passion – he had led from the front at Portman Road on and off the pitch. What’s more Magilton’s passion was controlled; for many, Keane’s disgraceful infamous ‘tackle’ on Alf Inge Haaland should have been his last act on a football pitch and his petulant desertion of his country in the World Cup should similarly have been seen as his defining moment. But money men – and some fans – can forgive anything if they smell the promise of success. And there was promise - even expectation. Several commentators suggested that the two-year contract offered meant one year to get to the Premiership and one to ensure that we stay there – simple as that. Certainly Man U fans who I knew almost took it for granted that promotion was around the corner. The national press described Keane’s appointment as part of Evans’s ‘big money project’ – the Irishman being seen as the man around whom the club would be built as it had at Sunderland. Putting Keane at the centre of the club – as seemed to be demanded by a combination of his ego and the club’s sycophancy - meant very much more than the appointment of a new manager. Talk abounded of the end of Town’s ‘genteel’ and ‘Corinthian’ past as if the likes of Terry Butcher, Kevin Beattie or Jason De Vos had been members of powder puff sides that never achieved anything aside from the odd FA Cup, UEFA Cup and promotion to the Premier League. Keane was to be the future. No one denied that Magilton lost his job because of a mid-table finish - well short of the play-offs – that was seen as unacceptable after £12m investment in players. Two years later and another mid-table finish (achieved largely because of Paul Jewell’s efforts to pull the club away from the relegation zone close to where Keane had left it) neatly sums up both the big money project and the delivery of a ‘winner’ So what went wrong? For all of the discussion and dissection of football management, for most of us the attributes of an effective proponent are actually quite straightforward – • Buying – the ability to spot players of ability and temperament who will fit into a team plan. And at the right price. Keane’s record here has been largely woeful. Ask most fans and they will say that Leadbitter is the closest to a success in this regard but his performances have been far from consistent. The laughable policy of seemingly buying only Irishmen who once played for Sunderland narrowed the prospect pool and hardly displayed much imagination or, importantly, the ability to see potential from the lower leagues (a policy that has proven admirably successful at that club up the road). • Selling – The departures of Jordan Rhodes and Jon Walters sparked the widest response and seem the most instructive. It now looks clear that Rhodes didn't want to go but that was instead pushed by Keane/Clegg in response to the size of Huddersfield’s offer; whatever the circumstances, his success at his new club has been beyond debate. The response to Walters’ departure was, I think, one of the best indications of the Keane effect. The manager’s personal vilification of Walters seemed to be adopted by many fans – a mystery given the general popularity of the ex-Chester man until then; this was continued when Walters, post-departure, chose to give his side of the story via a number of plausible anecdotes suggesting pretty unhinged behaviour by Keane. Once again, putting opinion aside, Walters’s subsequent success at Stoke – cup finalists and established Premier Leaguers – should put any debate about his ability to rest as should his commitment to the cause whenever he wore a Town shirt. • Selecting – the standing joke amongst the press was that that they didn’t take bets on the team line-up right up to kick-off because how were they expected to know if Keane didn’t? The laughter seems somewhat hollow now as does the underlying truth. For a man who had such strong opinions on the players that he had and the ones that he sought, his failure to create a ‘best team’ from them spoke volumes. • Organisation – if it was problematic to have no clue as to his best XI, then it hardly helped that he was equally unclear as to their best formation. Those hostile to Magilton had ranted that his teams’ style of play had been leaden and long ball dependant – a charge that looked difficult to justify to many of us. And yet time and time again this charge could certainly be applied to Keane whose teams relied on long balls to centre forwards who barely ever made anything of them. Extraordinarily, the manager seemed to refuse to see this, to acknowledge a Plan B and to make substitutions that ever did more than exacerbate the problem. It was as if all of his long experience as a player had been reduced to a myopia fuelled by a belief that his was the only view that would abide. • Motivation – Even if the above four attributes are in place what remains – and what is the gold dust of management – is the ability to mould people into a spirit that wins. Man management at its purest. The fatal and final weakness of Keane was clearly here – a catastrophic final nail in the coffin. Even on the day of his arrival there were rumours of texts between Ipswich and Sunderland (‘Roy’s coming – get me out of here!’) and now that the dust is settling the stories become rather more unsettling as players report of Keane never speaking to them direct but rather via other staff members. This rings true when compared to similar stories from his last days at Sunderland (at the time of the Town appointment, Mick Dennis in the Express reported on Keane’s "infrequent appearances at training" and the Telegraph’s Henry Winter rightly pointed out that Sunderland players, like most, accepted the "Mr Angry School of Management for only so long"). On the pitch the evidence of this was never clearer that the home game against Newcastle – an occasion dedicated to the memory of Sir Bobby and as such teed up for a classic and passionate affair but one that ultimately ended up in an embarrassing 0-4 capitulation in which the shambolic organisation of the side was critically underpinned by their appearance as a bunch of strangers lacking any passion. It is of course the combination of failures across the areas that did for Keane. A weakness in one or two may have been handled but cluelessness in all could not. How will we know if Tamas Priskin could have been the answer to our goalscoring problems when he was barely ever given a run of more than two or three games and then often playing alongside strangers in a shape that provided questionable logic and service? What Ian MacParland and the players achieved on one night against Arsenal hinted at something but delivered frustration amongst the euphoria. Ultimately for me the saddest and most destructive legacy of the Keane reign is its divisiveness amongst fans. From the moment that the rumours gained momentum in April 09 that Keane was to be the new manager, a ‘for and against’ mood took hold. I was unashamedly against – watching Sky Sports News the night before the announcement was like the unfolding of some sort of nightmare because I just couldn't believe that we would hand over the keys to our cherished club to a man who was possibly as inappropriate a guardian of it as I could imagine. On the other side, Keane’s proponents saw him as the means of raising our profile ("we’ll be on the back pages and on Sky Sports every day") which I suppose is some sort of argument but only if we want our club to be run along the lines of Big Brother. This division into pro and con took hold. However, as much as I hated the fact that Keane was there I – like all the doubters – obviously wanted him to succeed. I wanted the club to succeed. In the vitriolic final days of Magilton we’d all seen posts on TWTD wishing the side to lose so that the board would have to sack Jim – such bizarre and addled logic was never vented by Keane’s detractors as far as I saw. What did happen though was a suggestion that non Keane supporters should shut up or defect to another club. At the City Ground as we slid to a shambolic 0-3 defeat, I screamed in frustration as Keane substituted Wickham, who had been our only viable threat to the Forest defence. I was met with a volley of ‘Kean-o’ chants as if the evidence of our own eyes was to be set aside in favour of faith in an unseen plan that we were to believe existed in Keane’s head. Maybe it was Keane’s own near demonic belief in his own word that fostered unthinking adulation in some. Maybe it was the press’s feeding of it. Even at the conference to unveil him, the press fed him a question on which he bit and gave them the chance to prove his rent-a-quote reputation by pointing out that his track record of winning trophies was no worse than that of his contemporaries. Whether or not he intended to take a pop at his ex-colleagues (particularly Mark Hughes and Steve Bruce), it was certainly painted that way as an early indication of his coming out fighting. It was unnecessary and, whilst it may not have actually been an example of the childish digs that were expected of him, it set the agenda and provided great headlines for journos prodding at the wasps' nest. Keane’s detractors were many. At the time of his appointment there was no shortage of commentators ready to conjecture how long it would last and if the end would come in a fit of pique instigated by the man rather than marching orders from the club. Amongst those voicing scepticism at the Clegg/Evans Masterplan were Tony Cascarino, Andy Townsend (who described Keane’s character as one that "seems to breed confrontation"), Piers Morgan (whose description of Keane as a "serial whinger with a self-destruct button primed and ready" seemed uncharacteristically on the money) and the Telegraph’s Jim White (who felt that a man who "does not do human contact" might not have a long-term future in football management). Hindsight is a wonderful thing but not as wonderful as foresight - shame it wasn't more widely shared. And now, finally, after several months of silence Keane has commented on his experience at – and exit from - our club. Should any of us be surprised at the inference that it wasn’t his fault? In an approach that I imagine was intended to hint at dignity – but actually screams petulance – he refuses to talk in detail but does point out that he will never take another job without first meeting the chief exec. The suggestion rings out loud and clear that Clegg was the problem. Just like at Sunderland where he named Ellis Short as the culprit guilty of breaking his ‘condition’ of taking the job that ("there would be no interference with team affairs"). Odd this. Clegg himself made no equivalent complaints and has in fact been steadfast in his support of Keane’s efforts; maybe he’s regretting that now that the sights seem to be have been turned on him. We of course have no idea of what Keane is hinting at (player bids that Clegg/Evans blocked?, contract offers on which the manager was overruled?) but we do know that Keane spent hugely substantial sums from a more generous budget than has ever been available to an Ipswich manager. We also know the results. Were Keane ever to listen to anyone else of course, Cascarino’s words at the time of his Sunderland walk out must seem all the more galling. "I’d be amazed if he got another job in football,"the ex-Ireland striker commented. 18 months after just that happening, and another ignominious departure behind him, it would be hard to take issue with that. Fortunately for Town fans it’s not our problem. When Keane arrived he acknowledged the heritage of ITFC – in his words "a proper club". As we now survey the wreckage of his reign we can only hope that Messrs Jewell and Hutchings can put it right. At the same time we must heal the division between supporters and get back to being one solid group. Most of all, we must try to regain something of the spirit of this properly special club – something that Keane simply never got; time will tell whether or not Clegg and Evans do. Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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