Backofthenet
 By Ian
McCullough
The Championship certainly is the place to find fledgling Irish managers
with Roy Keane making the stunning move to take over as manager of struggling
Sunderland and join Mick McCarthy of Wolves, QPR’s Gary Waddock
and Leicester chief Rob Kelly in the race for a place in the Premiership.
The ex-Manchester United and Ireland captain’s decision to take
over the Black Cats was remarkable not only for the fact that Niall Quinn,
a man he slammed in his autobiography (along with about 4,000 other people),
is the chairman but also because it is a move that could quite easily
end in tears.
Quite frankly Sunderland is a club in freefall. Quinn’s consortium
have promised to splash the cash to bring back the good times on Wearside
and Keane will have not have taken over without the lure of a large transfer
kitty but it is going to need some major surgery to get the Black Cats
back to being a Premiership force like they were five years ago.
Keane’s knowledge of the rough and tumble of the Championship is
non-existent and so will be his patience when he sets eyes on some of
the players he has inherited at the Stadium of Light.
It is no surprise that the teams who have made the jump successfully to
the Premiership are the ones that took time to build with Reading, Wigan,
West Ham and to a lesser degree Fulham all spending wisely to get up before
holding their own in the top flight.
Sunderland need more than the addition of three big-money signings to
get their season started, especially with the transfer window closing
next week and Keane will have to learn some patience and man-management
skills if he is to have any chance of making it as a boss.
He will have picked up enough from Sir Alex Ferguson and Sir Brian Clough
to know what makes a good manager tick and Quinn knows his new manager
as well as anyone else in the game but he will be aware, being a man who
likes a punt, that this decision is the biggest gamble he will ever make
and is fraught with danger.
Keane of course is no fool and he will realise that he cannot expect to
gain the full respect of his players by adopting some of the stunts he
committed when he was at United. Ferguson’s whole managerial ethos
is based upon backing his players to the hilt and keeping disciplinary
matters in-house and out of the press.
This will mean the tirades aimed at under-performing teammates in previous
years will have to go out of the window as his new players, with their
confidence at rock-bottom, look to be lifted out of the doldrums and back
challenging in a division their loyal supporters deserve.
We will watch and wait with great interest how things pan out on Wearside,
and one date to pencil in your diary is November 25.
This is when Keane will take his new charges down to Molineux to take
on the McCarthy’s Wolves side oh to be a fly on the wall in that
tunnel! Who said the Premiership is where all the action really happens?
So far there has been just one Irish name on the score sheet in the so-called
greatest league in the world.
This came via Kevin Doyle who put Reading in front last Wednesday only
for a Martin O’Neill revitalised Aston Villa side to hit back and
claim a 2-1 win.
In the Championship, Burnley’s Alan Mahon opened his account for
the season in the Clarets 2-2 draw with Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.
In League One Cheltenham’s JP Melligan grabbed the winner in the
Robins’ 3-2 win over Millwall.
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