GROUP EIGHT - REPUBLIC OF IRELAND v GEORGIA COUNTDOWN: EMMET MALONEfeels Robbie Keane was a pawn in a bigger game played out in the boardroom of Anfield

ANSWERING QUESTIONS submitted to the FAI website by fans, Giovanni Trapattoni yesterday compared Robbie Keane to some of the greatest players he has worked with over his long and illustrious career in management, with the Irishman getting mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Michel Platini, Zbigniew Boniek and the Argentine striker Ramon Diaz. “Robbie is one in this category,” says the 69-year-old.

What a pity Rafa Benitez never came to regard the Ireland captain quite so highly.

The Spaniard, having worked hard over the last week to distance himself from the purchase of the 28-year-old last August, was sufficiently anxious to get rid of him in the end he was willing to leave himself short of cover for Fernando Torres and also run the risk of the Dubliner wreaking a terrible revenge on May 24th at Anfield.

Spurs visit the 18 times champions on the last afternoon of the season and if Liverpool are somehow still in the title hunt when the Londoners come calling, then Keane might just deal a fatal blow to the Merseysiders’ hopes of lifting a first Premier League trophy in almost 20 years. Ironically, if he did, it would actually cost him a winners’ medal too.

The exact proportions in which blame should be meted out for Keane’s failure to make more of an impact at the club he supported as a boy remain uncertain. Nobody, not even Benitez, has questioned the player’s attitude or application.

“Sometimes you have a good player like Robbie and they are not settled down or understanding with the other players. It is a situation you cannot control,” said Benitez earlier in the week.

The former Valencia boss would presumably argue that there is just no getting around the fact that one goal every four games is a poor return on an investment of more than €20 million and, from his point of view, there were a couple of misses along the way that really would not have helped the Irishman’s cause.

Still, Keane could be forgiven if he feels somewhat aggrieved over the way he was treated by a manager who does not have the greatest of reputations for his handling of highly-priced talent.

For a start, it was never entirely clear how the Spaniard intended to accommodate the Dubliner into a team primarily constructed to maximise Torres’ and Steven Gerrard’s chances of shining.

But Benitez, whatever the complicated internal politics of his situation at Liverpool, might have been expected to know what he was doing before making the comments that began the process of unsettling the Irishman at the end of last summer. And having made the move, Keane must have expected a little more time to find his rhythm at his new home.

True, it was his 11th game in a Liverpool shirt before he scored his first goal but seven in 17 after that really wasn’t too bad. It’s worth remembering, too, that he had taken seven and six games respectively to get going in his best two seasons at Spurs and he didn’t have to deal there with being played out wide or as a lone striker.

His manager during the bulk of those two seasons, Martin Jol, clearly came to regard him as one of the league’s very best strikers, paying tribute to his speed, strength and, most of all, his character.

This time last year Jol expressed surprise that nobody other than Everton had made a serious offer for the striker during his time at White Hart Lane and suggested that he was worth upwards of €20 million. Benitez said nothing to suggest he disagreed back in August while Alex Ferguson, having 10 years earlier dismissed the €6.9 million paid for Keane by Coventry City as a multiple of the sum he would have been prepared to offer, described the deal that brought him to Anfield as the most surprising of the summer months.

Given the tensions between the pair, Ferguson’s comments must surely have compounded the frustration felt by Benitez at Keane’s inability to make a more immediate impact.

It is, nevertheless, a little hard to fathom the extent of the disregard with which Benitez treated Keane during his final few weeks at Anfield. Gerrard, who shares Keane’s agent, had told Mark Lawrenson some weeks back the striker would be on his way once the January window opened and surely it could have been possible to spare him the humiliation of twice being omitted from squads for big games.

“It’s difficult to take being left out of a squad,” admitted Keane yesterday. “That hasn’t happened to me since I started playing when I was 17. But I did everything I had to do (at Liverpool).”

“I did everything possible to play but sometimes the manager just doesn’t fancy you, simple as that. Now, I’m training with a smile on my face again. Liverpool is the past and I’m concentrating on the future.”

Keane, to be fair, has always conducted himself well in public with regard to such matters, but it must still hurt that he has traded a title race for a relegation battle while his failure to fit in at Liverpool will reopen all the questions about his ability to really cut it at the highest level.

For years, his lack of goals against the better teams or on the bigger occasions had been raised against him and it was only during the last two seasons of his first spell at Spurs that he began to answer his critics with six of 45 goals in his last 98 appearances for the club coming against Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool.

To judge by his lavish tributes to the Dubliner yesterday, Harry Redknapp clearly reckons that the striker can pick up where he left off both in terms of goals scored and, perhaps even more importantly, leadership provided.

“He brings so much to a football club,” observed the Londoner, “not only as a player but as a personality. In training this week I’ve noticed a big difference, him being around rubs off on everyone and he’ll be very important for us.”

Trapattoni will certainly hope so. Predictably, he welcomed the move yesterday as something that would benefit Keane by providing him with the opportunity to play regular first team football. Gone, though, is the opportunity the Italian had welcomed just as warmly six months ago for the 28-year-old to further develop his skills against Europe’s best defenders in the Champions League.

Despite the continued emergence of Kevin Doyle, Keane has been Ireland’s top scorer under the veteran coach with three goals in the six games for which he has been available, following on from three in seven during 2007.

Still the doubts persist, however, about his ability to lead Ireland to the sort of breakthrough the team needs against higher-seeded teams if qualification for another major championship is to be achieved.

Of his international goals in the last two years, five came in friendly games and the other was the winner, headed into an empty net, from five yards after Damien Duff’s darting run and cross at home to Cyprus. His strike-rate in competitive games against big teams and also in away qualifiers generally remains terribly disappointing.

Keane’s difficulties in this department may not have been helped much by Trapattoni’s decision to persist with him as captain although Redknapp has now seen fit to follow suit.

Nor has the striker, who takes on a good deal of responsibility to help those behind him during games, appeared to benefit from the faith placed by Trapattoni in the inexperienced partnership of Darron Gibson and Glenn Whelan in central midfield, while players who might provide more support in attack are injured, overlooked or simply unavailable.

The manager has repeatedly observed that he sees Keane as having a touch of the Francesco Totti about him but during those most impressive seasons at Spurs, the Dubliner suggested he is actually at his best when allowed to operate as an out-and-out striker and the Ireland team’s regular inability to score against its qualification rivals suggests that Trapattoni cannot really afford to employ his captain in a way that does not maximise his goalscoring potential.

Sure, his record would suggest that Keane will be a decent bet to add to his tally of 35 goals in 85 international appearances against Georgia in Croke Park on Wednesday night, but Trapattoni needs to look beyond that and work on ways to help him score against better quality opponents.

After less than a year in charge, of course, the Italian has become rather settled in his views of how this Irish team functions best so we needn’t expect any dramatic reassessments, although at least he will be able to see Keane play on a regular basis for a team where every effort is made to facilitate a high strike-rate.

As for Keane himself, he resumes his Tottenham career with a good deal to prove again, at least to Benitez.

A goal or two in a win over Arsenal tomorrow would be a good way to start making his point to the Spaniard.