Roy Keane

[all_funkt_up]

May as well come out with this sooner rather than later. As a coach and a motivator of players, I am sure that Mr Keane is competant. However as a gaffer and a leader of a football club, the man makes some very questionable decisions. Not least in the transfer market.

I'll be honest, I've had a bee in my bonnet ever since the weekend over this. The preview to Sunderland v Liverpool on Sky Sports News said that Keane had spent a few quid, but that was nothing in comparison to Rafa Benitez's summer extravagance.


Now lets have this right, Roy Keane has spent lots of money. He has paid over the odds for the majority of players and most people would agree that they are average, Championship calibre players. Last season, Danny Higginbotham cost Stoke £200k. One year on and Keane pays £3.5m for the 28 year old. Kenwyne Jones for £6m is another crazy, crazy buy IMO - how on earth is he worth that much? Lets have a look at the rest of his picks this year:

Craig Gordon - £9m
Paul McShane - £2.5m
Dickson Etuhu - £1.5
Greg Halford - £3m
Russell Anderson - £1m
Kieran Richardson - £6.5m
Michael Chopra - £5m

£38million from that lot there. More "free" transfers have come in as well but we wont count those in terms of signing on fees etc. But I am sure the likes of Cole and Harte got nice "relocation" packages etc.

So have Sunderland got value for money this year from those buys? Can anyone really argue that any of those players, Gordon aside, are actually Premiership standard?

The media hails Keane as some sort of messiah. The man that is going to lead Sunderland to the promised land and eventually take over the reins at Manchester United too. I wish they would stop kissing his arse, its embarassing frankly. No hacks seem willing to take Keane to task over the money he's lashed out on average players.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

For the record, Benitez's net transfer spend has been in the region of £25million. And yet the press has him down as being wreckless almost. Since day one they labelled him a tinkerman, obsessed with rotation and now they've slapped this Big Spender tag on him too - even though his spending is dwarfed by both Keane and Ferguson too.

I hate the media.

[crowie]

As crazy as it may sound, he did too well too quickly at the Mackems. The Championship was nip and tuck all last season with teams all losing to each other. The Mackems winning run took them to the top of the league but they were still a Championship level team with Championship level players.

And its been proven that unless you have an exceptional set of players (Reading for example, who dominated the Championship) then you are going to struggle when you come up if you do not improve your team beyond Championship level. Derby are in the same boat this season.

So why Keane is bulking up his squad with almost exclusively Championship level players is a fucking mystery. Even taking out the Gordon signing, he has still spent £25m or so. Fine, you want to keep the squad predominately British but its been proved that overseas players are cheaper than UK based players and I am pretty sure he could have added better quality to his squad for £25m than he has done so.

[keemanan]

I do think Benitez has overspent on british players , how much was Bellamy and Crouch who now is 5th choice.

This however is astounding
Kieran Richardson - £6.5m

Run of the mill nothing at all special ex-manure winger , I gladly took a bet off two of my workmates that Sunderland would go down . keane will fall out with his players all season and he'll be left with 4 or 5 disgruntled staff who he cant shift till January , he'll end up knocking Naill Quinn out on live TV even though Big Naill is cringingly in awe of his Irishness.

9m for a Scottish goalkeeper , with all due respect that kind of money should buy ALL of them.

6m for Jones
This is from a saint fans forum:

So reluctantly , I say lets take the £5m for Jones , and thank our lucky stars that their is some mug ready to pay such an over inflated price for a player who a year ago we would have bitten somebodies hand off for half that fee.

He's ok , about 1m I'd say is right for him. I'm loving it

[all_funkt_up]

Originally Posted by keemanan

I do think Benitez has overspent on british players , how much was Bellamy and Crouch who now is 5th choice.

We made a £2m profit on Bellamy and Crouch is wanted by Newcastle and others and we would certainly make a profit on him as well.

[all_funkt_up]

I think when you come up to the Premiership, you have 2 choices. Invest in quality and stay up. Or spend nowt and take the extra money and run - just like Watford did last season. Then use the money the following year to re build.

He is spending money on players that no one else wants and still his squad looks like one of Championship quality.

[GaNgStA kEeKs]

Do you not think AFU that this is becoming the norm for the promoted teams?

Go and spend a huge amount and their transfer budget on players everyone else seems to know are Championship quality at best. Derby seem to have done it also.

Bar the odd player who makes the grade the rest are usually very average.

For Sunderland to spend that amount and the only quality player they have bought is Gordon is amazing. With that sort of budget you could be looking at some real quality players from abroad. The type of quality players that CAN make a difference.

[all_funkt_up]

Absolutely Kiko. I said at the time that Gordon may be a good player, but goals keep you in the Premiership. Losing 1-0 every game rather than by 2 or 3 will not however keep you afloat.

Sunderland could have brought in some quality for that money like you say Kiko. When you look at the players available this year for reasonable fee's and you see what they've spent on dross - it's almost criminal.

[Wayne]

Agree with what you're saying but surely there's also the problem of how do you get a top quality player to go to a newly promoted club (which more often than not will go straight back down). And also to Sunderland - Keano's already had a whinge about the 'shopping in London' players.

Doesn't excuse the daft transfer fees though! Did we really get £6.5m for Richardson! I thought it was an undisclosed fee?? Keano's played with the fucker, he knows how shite he is. Surely that's not right???

That goalie looks a great player though. £9m for a Scottish goalie is probabaly taking the piss but he does look quality.

I wish they would stop kissing his arse

That made me laugh AFU. He's been loved by the press all of his career hasn't he!

[crowie]

I am still hoping he will come with £2m for Bobo Balde before the transfer deadline

For £4m he can have Balde and Gravesen and for an extra 1p he can have Jiri Jarosik as well.

[crowie]

Originally Posted by waynemcke

That goalie looks a great player though. £9m for a Scottish goalie is probabaly taking the piss but he does look quality.

Believe me Wayne, Gordon is top notch and will only get better. He will be in the top 3/4 goalies in the EPL in a couple of seasons. However the fee (its actually £7m + £2m in add ons, probably dependent on Sunderland staying up or something) was barking.

We all laughed up here when Mad Vlad McMad Romanov was saying Hearts wanted £10m for him. Another mad rambling from the mad one. Top notch goalie or not, English clubs simply do not spend that sort of money on players playing in Scotland. So when they got the £7m/9m for him I nearly passed out. Fair play to the Jambos for holding out for that though but as AFU says, a decent keeper would probably be equally effective. Losing 2-0 to Liverpool with the keeper playing well gets you the same points as losing 4-0 to Liverpool.

[Wayne]

I've seen him play twice this year and some of his saves have been outstanding. Obviously, you've seen him play a lot more and if you reckon he'll be one of the top keepers in the PL, I can't argue.

Maybe that fee won't look quite so expensive when they sell him to one of the big 4 in a season or two's time?

[keemanan]

Big 5 now Wayne

[christianu]

Elano 8m (Brazil international, started very well)
Bainchi 8.8m (Looks awesome)
Geovanni (lazy but talented)
Garrido 1.5m (standard left back)
Corluka 7m (young highly rated defender)
Petrov 4m
fernandes 2m
Bojinov 5m

Around 36 million that lot, thank god we have sven

Not only would you take that lot over keanes buys any day of the week, but they all are very technically gifted players who play lovely football where as sunderland are going to be boring.

Keane's signings are completely bonkers, how is he ever going to be able to take over united when he cannot handle big name players or foreigners, it just wont work.

[Wittmann 44]

Roy Keane’s spending this year makes me think he has been doing some reading some Stalin during the close season – apparently when the Nazis were just outside Moscow in ’41 one of his generals said that the Germans were too good tactically and operationally and that all the Russian army had were huge quantities of peasants to throw in their way. Stalin supposedly shot back “comrade, quantity has a quality all of its own”. Stalin was proved right in the end but I’m not too sure that what is true in war is necessarily true here.

I don’t know much about this new lad Jones he has signed but the general consensus on the Saints message boards seems to be “what a steal” which doesn’t bode too well. 19 goals in 71 appearances is hardly going to strike terror in Premiership defences. To be fair to the lad the jury should be out on him for a while.

I think Sunderland’s attack isn’t actually that bad – the service to them is simply abysmal as the midfield has absolutely no class and the defenders main tactic seemed to be to boot the ball out of the ground at every chance. The game they played against Liverpool was as ugly a display as you’re likely to see by a so called Premiership team. No creativity or guile whatsoever.

Richardson looks woefully overpriced and ditto Halford who looks completely out of his depth. I think McShane will be a decent player given time. He’s not the most mobile but reads the game fairly well.

Gordon is on the basis of the few games I’ve seen a class apart – hard to see him being at Sunderland too long though. Don't think he will be resold for much more than 9 million though.

What really baffles me about Keane is not so much the average players bought but those bought in on frees – Andy Cole’s selection is baffling and ditto Ian Harte. Yorke should be allowed go back to Australia. He doesn’t have the interest, lungpower or the legs for the Premiership.

Keane seems unable to get outside a comfort zone of Irish / ex United / Celtic players. Simply not enough of a gene pool to mount a decent assault on the Premiership.

Bit too early I think to say “the Emperor has no clothes” but early signs would have me worried if I was a Sunderland fan.


Where’s Stalin when you need him?

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by keemanan

Big 5 now Wayne

Was actually including City Keem. We don't count anymore as we're still only 2 points out of a relegation spot.