Text exit! & “Roy, you bottled it”

Comment & analysis round-up

Quote of the day: “Roy’s decision sums up his desire to always do what is best for the club, despite the club’s efforts to keep him, Roy deserves huge respect for his contribution and the manner in which he guided the club from the depths of the Championship back to the Premier League. His winning mentality and singled mindedness were just what this club needed. Even in his departure he has been more concerned for the welfare of the players and his staff than himself. The board has reluctantly accepted his decision and wish him and his family well for the future.” - Niall Quinn.

Runner-up: “Sunderland are a great club so of course I’d be interested. I have huge respect for the chairman Niall Quinn and the job he has done.” – Sam Allardyce.

Today’s overview: The best piece of advice anyone could give Roy Keane this morning is don’t read the papers. The day after Keane’s exit from Sunderland there are a mixture of explanations for his exit as well as a number of pieces looking at the inner workings of Keano.

A number of papers report on how Keane submitted his resignation. Colin Young in the Daily Mail: “Roy Keane dramatically quit Sunderland with a text message to chairman Niall Quinn. Although solicitor Michael Kennedy last night insisted he drafted a resignation letter on his client’s behalf, Sportsmail understands Keane initially told Quinn of his decision to go by tapping it into his mobile phone.”

Louise Taylor (Guardian) describes why Keane quit. “Roy Keane’s enduring inability to iron out the contradictions in a charismatic and courageous yet also strangely cowardly personality made his departure from Sunderland yesterday somehow inevitable.” Michael Walker also analyses “how the Wearside messiah lost the plot in just 40 days.”

In The Times, Matt Dickinson also tries to decipher what went wrong. “A lengthy period for self-analysis may seem the last thing Keane needs given that beating himself up has been part of the problem. The thickening, shaggy beard was detected some weeks ago by experienced Keane-watchers as an obvious sign that ‘Roy was going through one of his darker phases’, when he becomes lost in introspection.”

Tony Cascarino joins the bandwagon in taking a pop at Keano, “Roy, you’ve bottled it. The first sign of turmoil in your management career and you’ve walked away, thrown in the towel. You may not see it that way, but what other interpretation is there?” Paul Doyle (Guardian) asks “Was Keane just a train wreck waiting to happen at Sunderland?”

James Lawton in The Independent also lays into the former Sunderland manager. “What he did – and if it sounds cruel it maybe needs to be remembered that few football men have been more stridently judgemental of those around them – was run away.” Also in The Independent, Sam Wallace asks “Is he really so fearsome, or just a cranky uncle?”

Phillip Cornwall of Football365 writes “Keane’s perfectionism, or at least high standards for himself and others, cost him his last chance to play in a World Cup, ended his Manchester United career, brought a premature end to his playing full stop, and now has cut short a managerial opportunity better than any he may be offered in the future. He cannot walk the dog forever.” Rob Smyth in the Guardian argues that great footballers shouldn’t become managers.

In the Daily Telegraph Paul Kelso writes that “Roy Keane looks like another manager undone by poor results and the fickleness of the playing staff.” And Henry Winter bemoans the Irishman’s departure, “What a waste. What a crying shame. Roy Keane, one of the most promising talents to stalk a technical area in recent years, has walked away from Sunderland and the Premier League is a poorer place without this charismatic, intelligent but very complicated Irishman.”

Matt Lawton in the Mail asks what now for the former Manchester United captain. “This is likely to be the last we’ll see of Roy Keane, and not just because the next club chairman might think twice before investing so much time and money in someone who has a habit of suddenly walking away.” Tom Humphries however believes that Keane will be back: “When the circus opens at a new club the show will begin again and we will all be ringside stoking the madness.”

Ian Wright looks ahead to whoever takes over and says “I now wonder who on earth Sunderland are going to get next. A foreign manager? Sam Allardyce? Ron Atkinson?!! You have to fear for the team. Whoever comes in, they will have to deal with a lot of negativity around the Stadium of Light. I do not know how the club will remain stable and I cannot see much good happening there over the rest of the season.”

There are a few articles on subjects aside from Roy Keane and Sunderland, Rupert Lowe warns football will pay for its past excesses, looking back on Cristiano Ronaldo’s sending off in the Manchester derby, Harry Pearson suggests “Manchester United’s Portuguese star needs a stunt double for dangerous activities like heading the ball.”

Finally, Roddy Forsyth in the Daily Telegraph laughs off any potential joint bid from Scotland and Ireland to host Euro 2016. “Euro 2016 will not be hosted by Scotland. The event will not be staged by the Scots, in conjunction with the Welsh or Northern Irish, or both. It will not happen even if the Inter Galactic Federation offers help.”