Pablo Always Liked The Colour Blue

Having read all week extracts from the new book to be released tomorrow about Roy Keane’s disastrous tenure at Town, it is refreshing to read the other side of the argument from time to time
and an old favourite at Portman Road provides it.

Keane said that he almost hit Pablo Counago once because our forward said that Town would win nothing whilst he was running the show but he was right! The old adage that people in glass houses should not throw stones, applies to Keane as much as anyone else and whilst the player was undermining the authority of his boss, his boss had forgotten how he confronted Mick McCarthy in the World Cup of 2002 just because he was dissatisfied with Ireland`s preparations.

American author and satirist Ambrose Bierce once said that in all men there is a tiger, a pig, a nightingale and an ass. He remarked that diversity of character is due to their unequal activity. The case in question is a persuasive one.

If this was applied to the Roy Keane football legacy to date, then we have already publicly witnessed all forms.

At Manchester United the Tiger was revealed as his never-say-die killer attitude drove the Red Devils onto so many great football achievements in his reign as captain and he was of course adored by Sir Alex!

And at Sunderland we saw the nightingale in him, as he flew into his first managerial job and soared away from the Championship and into the heady heights of Premier League football in just one short season!

In the 2002 World Cup as a player with Ireland, his piggish antics were apparent for all to see, as he left Mick McCarthy in the lurch because his big head outweighed any other considerations and he was eventually sent packing.

And finally, from 2009 until he was booted out by Marcus Evans in 2011, we saw an awful lot of ass. His DNA meant that he had an allergy towards blue and in the end most of us had an allergy towards him, as he brought the club to its knees.

Which makes me wonder, did Ambrose Bierce ever meet Roy Keane perhaps in another life?