Roy Keane’s eventful soccer career took another unexpected twist yesterday when he was appointed the new manager of Championship club Ipswich.
The former Manchester United and Republic of Ireland midfielder has signed a two-year contract at the Suffolk club, who sacked former boss Jim Magilton on Wednesday after it became clear that Ipswich had no chance of securing promotion to the Premier League this season.
Keane, 37, has been out of work since leaving Sunderland in December but recently indicated that he was ready for a new challenge.
“I truly believe that I am joining a club that has the potential, ambition and infrastructure to once again be a Premier League side,” the Irishman said. “The club’s owner and chief executive impressed upon me their total focus on achieving this quest at the earliest opportunity and I can’t wait to get started.”
Having taken Sunderland from fourth from bottom of the Championship into the Premier League in 2006-2007, his first season in charge, Keane knows what it takes to get teams into the top flight of English soccer.
But the abrupt manner of his departure from Sunderland raised questions about whether his character — uncompromising to admirers; insular and volatile to his critics — is suited to the multi-faceted task of managing a soccer club.
After he left Sunderland, his old manager at Manchester United, Sir Alex Ferguson, was among a number of figures who questioned whether he would ever return to management.
Keane subsequently explained that the decision to leave had been triggered by a breakdown in his relationship with Ellis Short, an US investor who had started to question the way the Irishman was running the club at a time when Sunderland were struggling on the pitch.
Whatever the truth of what went on at Sunderland’s Stadium of Light, the way events were perceived meant Keane was unlikely to be offered the chance of managing a Premier League club.
In a recent interview with the Irish Times, however, he stressed that he was willing to take a step back down to the Championship and move from his home in the Manchester suburbs.
At Ipswich, he is expected to be backed with substantial funds with the owner, Marcus Evans, having already invested £12 million (US$17.4 million) on new players.
That investment did not produce the desired results under Magilton, who had been in charge since June 2006 and left with the club in ninth place in the table, 12 points adrift of the final play-off spot.
Evans said Keane had been approached because of his record of getting his teams to play passing soccer, in the tradition of a club which won the UEFA Cup in 1981 and, with the Dutch duo Arnold Muhren and Fransz Thijssen, were pioneers in importing foreign talent into the English game.
“Roy has extensive contacts in the game and is a proven winner who encourages his team to play the attractive football that Ipswich Town fans have come to expect,” Evans said. “He is the right man to take this club where we want to be — the Premier League.”
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
Marcus Rashford’s first goals for Aston Villa on Sunday inspired a 3-0 win against Preston North End that sent his side into the FA Cup semi-finals for the first time in 10 years. Rashford struck twice in the second half at Deepdale to end Preston’s stubborn resistance before Jacob Ramsey wrapped up Villa’s long-awaited return to the last four. Villa are to face Crystal Palace — 3-0 winners at Fulham on Saturday — in the semi-finals at Wembley Stadium in London. Revitalized since joining Villa on loan from Manchester United during the January transfer window, Rashford is beginning to show the form that
RSS