Keane's Higher Standards Upset Lesser Beings.

Ricky Sbragia: That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain.

Does anyone remember the interview with former Sunderland player Clive Clarke when he said that Roy Keane had no respect in the Sunderland dressing room, that he ruled by fear and never spoke to the players blah blah blah? One hears these sorts of criticisms of Keane quite often usually from disgruntled ex-players or colleagues. There are plenty of nameless anecdotes doing the rounds of players uttering the words "oh no" as Keane enters the players lounge and the previously jolly atmosphere turns positively glacial.

It strikes me that Ricky Sbragia in particular gives Roy plenty of backhanded complements. "I've just changed a few things" he says to give the players more freedom and make them more relaxed. "The players are now free to think for themselves. It had gotten boring around here."

Among the things Sbragia changed was to refund all the player's fines they received this season under Keane and they no longer stay in a hotel on the night before games. Ricky has apparently freed up the Sunderland players to play to their potential and in fairness they are currently in 15th position, four points clear of the drop with five games to go so he must be doing something right. Under Ricky's new liberal regime, Sunderland have indeed reached whole new levels of mediocrity and in five short months he has managed to transform the club into one which is dull, boring and utterly irrelevant to the excitement of the Premier League.

At least the players will be happy. They will still receive their massive pay cheques but more importantly they can also relax. Sbragia has saved Sunderland from the pressures of succeeding. He asks only that they be themselves. The very idea that Sunderland would be a great club built by players of great character left with Keane and they have quickly reverted to being a club that see being in the Premier League at all as a bonus.

I think the reason Keane is criticised by these people, people like Tony Cascarino, Clive Clarke and Ricky Sbragia is because they do not share his desire to succeed. In fact I would their only desire is to survive. In their minds that alone is success.

For Keane, success is achieving more than was thought possible. It's probably more than that but it's a good start. He sets the bar to the highest level, not the lowest acceptable one.

He said in his press conference yesterday that all he expects of players is that they turn up on time and give 100%. The truth I would say is that this is exactly what Keane demands and nothing more. The problem for Roy I suspect, is finding players who are as professional as he is. I've spoken Paul McShane about Roy. Paul said "Roy Keane is a good man and a good manager". Andy Reid said something similar on that recent TV3 documentary.

Keane might well sign McShane in the summer. He is the type of player that could get you out of the Championship and he will bring the standards to Ipswich which Keane will demand of all players. I'm not sure why players would be upset by Keane. They only train for a couple of hours a day. It's hardly asking too much that they work extremely hard and make sure they're in peak physical condition for games.

Roy made mistakes at Sunderland such as constantly chopping and changing the team, never giving players a chance to settle in any one position but this might well have been borne out of the frustration of not having the right players to compete in the Premier League. All the same, he will have to put more faith in his players at Ipswich. Maybe this is what he spoke of when he talked about learning from the mistakes at Sunderland but he shouldn't do that (and I don't believe he will) at the expense of the standards he sets for himself and everyone else, regardless of who he might upset along the way.