'Roy Keane, Manchester United's first line of defiance,
yesterday described the task of staying in this season's
Champions League as "the biggest challenge this team will
ever face". Judging by his own anonymity in Tuesday's 3-1
quarter-final first-leg defeat at Real Madrid, Keane himself
faces the biggest challenge of his professional life.
'The Irishman's career has been rescued by the hands of
surgeons before but the sands of time, now fully exposing
the ravages of mobility-restricting injuries to hip and
knee, are not sparing him. A great player is in decline. It
is both sad and true, like discovering rust accruing on a
beloved steel monument.
'Sir Alex Ferguson's loyalty to Keane is not in question but
an ambitious manager who has shown no mercy when his teams
need rebuilding knows that John O'Shea, a youngster who has
excelled across the back four, has the versatility to
function in the engine-room. O'Shea's obvious class in terms
of touch, confidence and decent speed demands he starts
soon.
'The time to worry about Keane is now. Ferguson could field
him at centre-half but Keane is a proud, thoughtful man and
no one should rule out a sudden retirement announcement a la
Eric Cantona.
'Tuesday night was an education but the lesson of United has
always been that they will be back. With or without Keane
remains to be seen.'
Matt Dickinson in the Times:
'Perhaps the most alarming feature for United was Roy Keane’s
failure to ride into town as Ferguson’s enforcer. Keane
looked like a great heavyweight who had gone a fight too
far.
'He did not even sound convincing when he tried to revive the
spirit of Turin in 1999 when, in the semi-final against
Juventus, the United captain pushed Zinedine Zidane to the
margins of the game with an heroic performance. On Tuesday,
Keane never got close to the world’s most dextrous
footballer. “Juventus were a great side when we beat them
but Real are better,” Keane said with a tinge of
resignation.
'The more Keane is criticised, the more Ferguson will
publicly defend his captain, but he will know that the
Irishman’s intimidatory powers are now limited to
frightening only the lesser sides in England and Europe.
Arsenal will know that Patrick Vieira can take advantage of
Keane’s lack of mobility after hip surgery when they meet in
a potential Premiership classic at Highbury on Wednesday.
The radical move would be to switch Keane to central
defence, where the partnership of Rio Ferdinand and Wes
Brown continues to look less than the sum of its parts.
Keane’s nastiness might rub off on two natural strollers.'
Steven Howard in the Sun:
'Alex Ferguson has reached the moment in his Manchester
United career he always dreaded. It's the awful realisation
that Roy Keane can no longer carry the most successful side
in the country.
'Since arriving from Nottingham Forest in 1993-94 - even more
so since the retirement of Eric Cantona - Keane has been the
heart and soul of Old Trafford. But the stunning events at
the Bernabeu Stadium on Tuesday confirm the Irishman is no
longer the force he once was.
'Keane claims that even the magnificent ensemble put together
in Madrid by Vicente Del Bosque is human.
'Sadly, so is the man who once bestrode the footballing world
like a colossus.'
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