Boss Roy Keane says he has sympathy with critical supporters given Town’s position in the Championship's bottom three. Keane says fans have shown him a great deal of patience during the Blues' struggles but admits that it's now wearing thin.

The Blues boss said: “I think I’ve been very lucky during my career. I think supporters have always been pretty decent to me at whatever clubs I’ve been at. I think the Ipswich fans have been.

“But I live in the real world, I don’t just go home and put my head under the duvet and not think about it, I think that patience was definitely used up the other night, even from the most tolerant of supporters and I can understand that 100%.

"I'm sure if I was a supporter I'd be saying, 'Listen, you need to do better', and we do need to do better. There's no hidden agenda there.

Keane admits that he may already have been shown the door at other clubs: "I think I have been lucky that Simon and the owner have been quite supportive. But that support runs out just like with supporters.

"Trust me, I'm not daft, I might look it, but I'm not. I appreciate that if you're not winning football matches and you're in charge of a club, your luck will run out."

The former Manchester United skipper says he thrives on life as a football manager: "I don't think I could do a normal job.

"I need something to excite me and to challenge me and the challenge now is to get us up the table and change the mindset of the Ipswich supporters because if I was a supporter I'd be looking at it and be exactly the same."

Keane feels that improvements are being made in some areas of the club but says that matters little if the first team isn’t getting the results: “Nobody outside this club is going to be feeling sorry for us, we’ve got to roll our sleeves up, make sure we get up this table and kick this club on because I think we have been making progress in the background, but ultimately the manager is judged on every Saturday afternoon.

“I can talk all day about training, the training ground, the reserves, the scouting network, the medical staff, all that. But that goes out the window on a Saturday afternoon or a Tuesday evening because the supporters don’t want to hear that, they want to see a team going out there giving it their all, scoring goals, being passionate, being very hard to beat and giving 100%.

“That’s what they ask for and if you can’t provide that, you’re asking for trouble.”

Photo: Action Images

Gazelle added 20:39 - Feb 20 What ever people might say about Keano, the fact is that conceding goals in the last minute has cost us 9 points, and that's not the manager's fault. That nine points would have found us a healthy 8th in the table, only 3 points outside the playoffs, with the prospect of an exciting finale to our season.
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kentblue added 06:23 - Feb 22 The man is clueless and a fraud . A big name manager due to his playing career with numerous headlines due to his poor behaviour. There is no way ITFC should be languishing near the foot of the table with a merrygoround of players in one moment and out the next . A club like ours needs a settling influence and consistency form a man who holds respect .
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Surco72 added 11:07 - Feb 22 Yorkshire you dont need to go back in time just check the archives on this website and you will find a number of people who thought the Martin and Priskin signings were poor and over priced and they have all been proved right .
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yorkshire added 12:47 - Feb 22 "Yorkshire you dont need to go back in time just check the archives on this website and you will find a number of people who thought the Martin and Priskin signings were poor and over priced and they have all been proved right ." Evidence ? Because I certainly can't remember anything about them being porr signing when they arrived here and certainly not a "number of people" Also - how would they have known they were poor signings at the time - no-one had really seen Martin play and Priskin came of the back of a good season with Watford. They were both young players with potential - something that hasn't often been said about Ipswich's signings of the past 6-7 years

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