Did Roy Keane's interview justify his decision to leave Sunderland?

Pádraic Fitzpatrick(17), from Oatlands College in Dublin, says:

NO:IT CAME as no surprise to me when national "hero" Roy Keane stepped down from his Sunderland post on December 4th. Many fanatical Keane fans believe he was correct to part company with his first job in his managerial job. I, however, remain unconvinced.

When initially installed as Sunderland manager many claimed Keane had an impossible task to keep the former Premier League club afloat, let alone secure promotion. But that year he guided the club to promotion to the Premiership.

While I am the first to offer credit where it’s due, you must also take into account the vast sums of money at Keane’s disposal. On the final day of the transfer window he secured no less than six new signings, most notably former team-mates Dwight Yorke and Liam Miller.

As the season progressed Keane’s Sunderland side gradually climbed the table. Along came January and, again, funds were made available to him that very few Premier League, let alone Championship clubs, could compete with.

Keane was starting to build a huge squad of players, with huge talent. As expected, Sunderland captured the title. And Keane earned himself a manager of the year award.

An amazing achievement, inspired by a young, talented manager, some may think. With the sums of money invested in Keane’s squad a mere schools coach could have achieved promotion. No coaching coups, no wonderful tactical decisions – money talks, and it did in this case!

During the summer of 2007, Keane continued with this trend of spending huge money, with the additions of ex-Manchester United players Paul McShane and Kieran Richardson, among others. Expectations for a club spending such huge money should be high, so most pundits backed Sunderland to stay up. A feat that was achieved, with a certain degree of ease.

Again I show respect to Keane for guiding his newly promoted Sunderland team to safety, a goal many Premiership new boys rarely achieve.

The following season’s expectations on Keane’s Sunderland began to exceed what was first expected with the big money signings of Anton Ferdinand from West Ham and the loan signing of former Liverpool striker Djibril Cissé from French giants Marseilles.

Despite such signings, the team’s results remained inconsistent, resulting in a lowly 18th position in the league. Pressure began to mount with fives loses in six games. Keane stood down as manager after a 4-1 defeat to Bolton.

Keane’s reasons for departure are weak. He accuses main shareholder Ellis Short of forcing him out of the club. However, I believe Short was right to questions Keane’s results due to the amount of money invested by the American.

Keane is renowned for walking away when any authority is stamped down in relation to his role. This was highlighted when he walked away from his country when he was needed most in Ireland’s 2002 World Cup campaign.

Not only have Keane’s actions disappointed many Sunderland faithfuls, it has also set an example to the younger generation who look up to Keane.

A prime example of this is fellow Cork man Stephen Ireland’s refusal to line out for his national team. Keane’s loyalty has been tested on two very important occasions and it seems when the going gets tough, Keane turns his back on the challenge. So next time Keane is referred to as national hero or managerial genius, take the time to consider exactly how great this man is!

Conor Healy (17),also from Oatlands College in Dublin, says:

YES:HE IS the quintessential warrior, bearing the scars of battle. The anger that explodes from Roy Keane the footballer is unchanged now as Roy Keane the manager contemplates his first experience of Premier League management.

It occurred to me while watching Keane on the sideline in happier times at Sunderland that he is a man of watching and shouting.

He watched in the fug of Saipan as Ireland’s preparations for the World Cup fell apart like a distasteful joke; he shouted them all down by making that decision to leave the team on the eve of the tournament and taking an ultimate stand for the principles that had carried him that far.

He watched as he almost imperceptibly lost control of Sunderland, with a mutiny against the aspects of the game he treasured by men who hadn’t stood shoulder to shoulder with him on the field. Honesty. Hard work. Selflessness. He shouted by taking the walk off the plank of his career and reputation, preferring to leave when the control he needed at that club was no longer there towards the end.

Roy’s standards did not allow him to let things pass unnoticed. They would always be noticed, but would he be the one to shout about them? Integrity. A word bandied about so much it loses true meaning. So important to keep your cool in management, so important to a man like Roy to keep his word to himself, and when there is a collision of integral values and high-speed style, the outcome is inevitable.

He learned the merits of hard graft at Cobh Ramblers and under Alex Ferguson elevated his standards of football to impossibly high levels. The United juggernaut was to be the yardstick his mind would always measure against – he’d never get away from that. The ones who say he should have stayed on at Sunderland fail to understand his dilemma over being involved in something he didn’t agree with.

He watched as his side struggled feebly to overcome Bolton and failed. That evening incoming calls from one of the owners, American businessman Ellis Short, were ignored, the quota of chatter being filled earlier that day. The constant submission to a foreign tycoon and usurping of ego was tiresome for him. He thought Short had already made his mind up upon meeting him that “I wasn’t for him”. Possibly the watcher stirred in Roy again, noticing all that was bad, and he did not approve. The influence of Ferguson’s model at United again rears its head; Keane needed, however subconsciously, the control of the club plus everything that that brings with it.

He slowly evolved into the bad guy and the crowd’s clamour grew. But lest you forget, you fickle denizens of the Wearside, he was the one to lead the way from the Championship to the Premiership. How quickly opinions change in football. In all that shouting in his interview on his reasons for leaving Sunderland, he said that he felt he couldn’t give his heart and soul to the club in the final weeks.

The situation at the club lost the whirr of a well-oiled machine and after calculating the extent of the rust, he threw down his tools.

I do not think it was possible in any way for Roy to stay on at Sunderland once he had seen so much at the club grate against his principles.

As we saw in Saipan, “Exit Roy” can and will happen if he is so morally challenged.

But that is the enigma of Roy Keane. He watches . . . he watches . . . and sometimes he shouts.