Roy Keane is still anxious to try his hand at club management again but the Corkman admits that, whenever he does dip his toe back in the water, there will be less scope than ever for error, with clubs allowing managers a smaller window of opportunity to find a successful formula.
"Experience and making mistakes is all part of life," said the 45-year-old in an interview with Newstalk's Off the Ball. "Some of the greatest coaches in this planet have had massive setbacks earlier in their career and what you've got to do is try and learn from it fast and get another opportunity.
“But in soccer it’s gone to another level. We’ve seen over the weekend, three more managers have lost their jobs in the Championship [a fourth has gone since the interview was recorded] and it’s crazy. Owners seem to have no patience these days so if you make these mistakes you want to try and make less of them as you get older, to get a bit wiser and learn from it.”
While he waits for the right opportunity, Keane says he is enjoying his work with the Republic of Ireland and coping happily enough with his ITV commitments ,even if he misses working at the big games now that the changed broadcast rights landscape means most of his appearances for the channel are from a studio.
“I kinda miss being at a top level Champions League match and giving my opinion that way because it’s great being at a match, you get a feel for the game, the pace of the game, it’s difficult when you’re in a studio watching on a screen like everyone else but, you know, I’ll stick to it for the next few months and see where that takes me. My deal with ITV expires in the summer and every summer I take stock and say, do I really want to do it again next year? We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
Beer and skittles
In the meantime, the bulk of the games he goes to are for the purposes of seeing Irish players in action, something that doesn’t, he points out, always come to pass. It is not, he explained somewhat humorously, all beer and skittles.
“I went to Wigan and Bristol on Saturday and [Callum] O’Dowda was on the bench, so you travel and think, ‘My god, the one player I’ve come to watch is on the bench’ but that’s the risk you always take.
“But this idea of travelling to the matches and meeting people for a cup of tea at half-time, mmm, let me tell you, that doesn’t rock my boat. Sometimes when you go to these grounds you can’t even get a decent cup of tea and you make a lot of small talk with people you don’t want to have small talk with. It’s a battle to get into the car park. You bump into lots of idiots on your travels so don’t be kidded on that it’s all glamorous.”
After talking about the grá he had for the physical side of the game, he was asked about his early, tone-setting challenge on Marc Overmars in the World Cup qualifying game against the Netherlands at Lansdowne Road in 2001.
“Let’s get this straight,” he said, “Overmars wouldn’t have been the toughest player on the planet. He was very, very good and very tricky but I wouldn’t worry going into a tackle with Overmars. I’d like to think I’d be the slight favourite on that side of it.
“There’s no point in praising me for that. If I couldn’t dominate Overmars in a tackle, I should have been sitting in the stand.”
