When your job is at stake the natural emotion is fear and a rapid knee-jerk reaction can be the appropriate response to up the ante. Roy Keane has done knee-jerk reactions before but on the evidence of this season, they could well be in the past.
The traits which moulded Ireland’s problematic favourite son in his illustrious playing career seem to have mysteriously disappeared from the make-up of the Ipswich Town manager over the past 12 months.
Playing second fiddle has never come into the equation for Keane. As a player he was idealistic in nature and a stickler for principles in the professionalism of both club and country regimes, but that does not reflect the former Manchester United legend’s current status.
He has presided over a mediocre season for Ipswich Town, finishing in 15th place, and has survived at least one round of rumours relating to his axe.
Extraordinarily, when propositioned by the exit sign at Portman Road, Keane was flippant. There wasn’t an ounce of his characteristic defiance, no outburst of uncontrollable passion.
Instead, Keano opted to genuflect and trudge on. Citing family support and the harsh world of football managers’ regular terminations as excuses if he were to get the chop, Keane allowed what at one stage seemed to be his inevitable departure to wash over him.
Any category of football fan will know that Keane will not, and should not, remain with Ipswich. But is he on his way to the top or the wilderness?
The undercurrent from Keane’s media chit-chats, apart from vigorous sporadic opinionated views on the Republic of Ireland set-up, depicts a man who is waiting for a shark to come along, not just any fish.
He rose to the top of the game as a player and will surely be satisfied with nothing less as a manager. However, the first Premier League casualty of the close-season has seen Gianfranco Zola depart West Ham and it’s unlikely that Keane’s name will be bandied about alongside those of, say, Avram Grant and Alex McLeish.
He has been linked with a return to Celtic as a manager, but Neil Lennon has been doing all in his power to make the Parkhead position permanent and in any case, it must be a doubt whether Celtic would even regard Keane as an appealing alternative.
Keane was damaged by the manner of his departure from Sunderland and there is little doubt that his reputation has taken further blows after Ipswich’s desperately disappointing performance in the season just ended.
Can he become a top manager? For the answer to that, we must play the waiting game, just like him.
For now, it feels like the Icelandic volcano personified: bubbling over occasionally, but could explode at any moment.
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