Keane the light in a new beginning

A year on The Wear: This is it. At 12.45 this afternoon, with Prokofiev and U2 blaring at the Stadium of Light and Roy Keane standing at the top of the tunnel shaking his Sunderland players' hands one by one, the talk will cease. It is time for Sunderland to walk again in the Premiership and a league, a city and 200 countries gawp.

But for the television cameras beaming Sunderland around the globe, the focus will fall first on the man in the suit, one day past his 36th birthday, Keane. He, too, is back in the Premiership after almost two years away, first at Celtic, then semi-retirement, then in the Championship with Sunderland.

The elite have missed Keane and the Premiership will play on and prey on his presence. Beckham, Vieira, van Nistelrooy, Shearer, Henry and Keane himself have all departed the playing stage in the past four years. These are stellar losses as the attention has swung to the dugouts of Mourinho, Benitez, Wenger and Ferguson.

Now Keane is there, though he said he cannot imagine being "pals" with any of them because the division is "cut-throat".

Keane's magnetic force hardly needs explaining again but, just in case some had forgotten what he brings to the whole shebang, the "cut-throat" comment came amid further evidence of Keane's force on Thursday morning at Sunderland's training ground.

With Craig Gordon freshly signed for €13.3 million, Sunderland breaking the British transfer record for a goalkeeper in bringing Gordon down from Hearts, Keane was buoyant. He spoke optimistically of adding Tottenham's Mido as well, though as of last night that had not yet happened, but Gordon sitting there reminded Keane of Peter Shilton, who in turn reminded Keane of Brian Clough.

Clough, Keane's first manager in England at Nottingham Forest, and arguably the greatest ever English manager, is never far away from Keane. Partly this is because Clough came from the north-east - he was from Middlesbrough - and partly it is because Clough then played, superbly, for Sunderland. But partly it is because Keane simply loves talking about Clough.

"I never get fed up being asked about Brian Clough and hopefully I never will," Keane said. "What he did with Forest gives all of us great hope. You talk about the Readings and Wigans, but you go back to Clough and what he did at Forest and he was an absolute genius."

And what Clough did specifically 30 seasons ago was to drag Forest to promotion to the top flight, break the British transfer record for a goalkeeper by taking Shilton from Stoke City, and then win the title. Clough signed Kenny Burns from Birmingham City and Larry Lloyd from Coventry City and somehow moulded them with Shilton and a few others into champions.

What was remarkable on Thursday morning was that Keane listened to questions about possible comparisons and went along with them. There were caveats about "the need to establish ourselves", etc, but the broad message was that Keane welcomed Sunderland being talked up.

"I want to create something at Sunderland," Keane said. "I want to leave my mark at every club I have been to and hopefully I will try and do that.

"Everyone thinks it will be the big four who always grab the headlines, and lots of teams are beaten before they play the big four. I knew as a player - you just looked at them in the tunnel and they were already beaten: beaten by your history, beaten by your jersey, beaten by your crest.

"They say that about a lot of teams. The Yankees won a lot of baseball games because of their stripes. Real Madrid, they won a game before even kicking a ball. We cannot go in there facing any team thinking we are already beaten, far from it.

"That is my job as a manager and that is what I enjoy. I enjoy pushing the players to the limit. Listen, we have to go up there, enjoy it and be up there for the challenge. I've been there as a player. I have been fortunate, but let me tell you there is nowt to be fearful of, nothing for my players to be fearful of."

A rallying cry, a mission statement, call it what you want, it must be inspiring to hear Keane speak with such passion in a dressingroom.

And at least a couple of those Sunderland players - as well as a local population that could be described as anxiously optimistic - probably need to hear it.

Because after a thousand flashbulbs have caught Keane shake hands with Tottenham's Martin Jol, the attention returns to the players and it is then that the Sunderland sceptics will pipe up. It will be pointed out that while Keane has spent €7.4 million on Michael Chopra, Spurs have spent €25 million on Darren Bent and they already had Dimitar Berbatov, Robbie Keane and Jermain Defoe.

It will be pointed out that Tottenham have finished fifth in the Premiership in consecutive seasons. It will be recalled that the last time Sunderland were promoted under Mick McCarthy, Darren Bent scored on the season's opening day at the Stadium of Light, for Charlton. Sunderland had a new goalkeeper then as well - Kelvin Davis.

It feels longer than two years ago. In terms of personnel, Keane has turned the club upside down in the past year. Dean Whitehead is the only player who will start today who started against Charlton.

Whitehead was joint top scorer that miserable season - with three, none of them winners. In fact none of his goals won Sunderland a solitary point. There is only one man left in the current squad who can claim that distinction: Daryl Murphy.

Murphy's 89th-minute equaliser in February last year makes the Waterford man stand out. It is a sad statistic but the good omen is that Murphy's goal was at home against Tottenham.

"I've still got great memories of that," Murphy said this week. "It was my first and only Premier League goal so it's still fresh in my mind. But I don't think the memory of that season will ever go. It was a tough season for everyone that was here, and you're always going to remember if you get relegated with the lowest points.

"But I just feel that it's a totally new beginning for all of us. We're under new management and new ownership, everything has changed. I think we've brought a lot of the right players in. The gaffer is always saying that he's looking for character, and I think he's found that."

It will be a sign of Sunderland's progress if the concentration moves away from their charismatic manager. But for much of today, it will be all about a character called Roy Keane.