Keane hopes to lure top players

English Championship:Confident, assertive but without a trace of cockiness, Roy Keane rarely speaks without certainty. So it was yesterday that, 24 hours after Sunderland's promotion to the Premiership, the Irishman said: "We're not going up there with the mind-set that finishing fourth-bottom would be a good season. I hear that from many managers but, let me tell you, you won't be hearing it from me, far from it." No one argued.

Keane's encapsulation of the season was "it's a nice start" and, when asked if signings for next season would send out a message about Sunderland's ambition and determination, he replied: "Definitely."

Does he expect to have the problem previous managers have had, of attracting major players to Wearside? "No. Sunderland is a different football club now, we hope. There's a new chairman, new owners and a new manager. I'm hoping I can attract big players. I'm hoping we can add something to the Premiership, we're not just going up there with the attitude of hanging in there. The Premiership is where Sunderland should be."

Does he have names in his head of whom he may try to buy? "One or two." They may be defenders: Jonny Evans and Danny Simpson, two of the back four, belong to Manchester United and are going back there. One former United colleague, Michael Stewart, is training with Sunderland having fallen out with Hibernian.

What about contractual discussions? There have been suggestions Keane has been offered another two years on his three-year contract already. "I don't really get bogged down in that. There have been discussions but I'm quite relaxed about it. I tend to let my solicitor, Michael Kennedy, deal with that and he's very good."

Keane recalled the "madness" of his first couple of months, the "hectic" activity of trying to squeeze in transfers before the end of August, of how he and his assistant, Tony Loughlin, "hit a brick wall" around six or seven o'clock every night.

"Me and Tony, we were renting a house together, we were getting pulled left, right and centre, sorting so much out, everything. We were coming back and falling asleep. It was a mad, mad few months. We knew it would be like that, of course, we wanted to change a lot of things around the club. It was like a crash-course in management.

"I suppose that was the only way it was going to be, I wasn't going to come into a big job like this without the club having its difficulties. Those first two or three months in the job I wouldn't wish on anybody. Absolute madness."

Keane took time yesterday, as he has done consistently, to praise Loughlin and the rest of the backroom staff - "If you think it's all down to me, you're in cuckoo land" - but it is Keane who has set a tone from day one and it has been his refusal to accept that second-best will do. That measured belligerence is part of what has been seen over the past eight months and neither Luton nor Birmingham should be in doubt when Keane said Sunderland are going to Kenilworth Road on Sunday "to win". If they do, and Birmingham fail to at Preston, then Keane's team will be champions.

He said that an open-top bus parade through Wearside to celebrate is "not my cup of tea; I suppose I could drive", but he has enjoyed the new perspective on football he has been given by a season outside the top flight.

"The Championship has opened my eyes to lots of things; I was probably disrespectful to it as a player. But life isn't all about the Premiership, there are lots of good football people, good football, good fans and good clubs in the Championship. It's a pity the gap is so much, financially. And some of the managers I've dealt with have been pure class - David Jones at Cardiff, George Burley, Mick McCarthy. Mick gave a good, honest account of our match up here. Steve Cotterill on Friday night."

Each of those men remain focused on the Championship. For Keane and Sunderland a new episode elsewhere beckons.

Guardian Service