Trapattoni has faith in ‘mature’ Keane

Giovanni Trapattoni is hoping Robbie Keane’s lack of first team football so far this season won’t negatively affect his performances for Ireland.

Keane has fallen behind Roman Pavlyuchenko, Peter Crouch and Jermain Defoe in Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp’s plans.

Keane has only made two substitute appearances for Spurs this year, and it has emerged that Tottenham accepted an £8million bid for the Dubliner on transfer deadline day.

Trapattoni has praised Keane’s maturity, however and is hopeful that he can be successful in his fight to regain his place.

“Robbie is mature,” Trapattoni said. “I have spoken to him about whether he should stay with his club and I said to him, ‘Sure, your club needs you’.

“He is balanced in his mind about football because he knows from many years in England, he knows the situation.

“But I am selfish at the moment. For the Ireland team, it is better he has played a few games.

“He is proud and I’m sure he can play like the Robbie Keane we know.”

Ireland will take on Armenia in Yerevan on Friday, 3 September – kick off will be at 4pm, and we will be tracking it live on JOE.ie in our football section.