Roy Keane is back in football, but a new beginning didn’t stop a few old scores from being settled. Mark Douglas reports

FIVE months after his whirlwind departure, Sunderland dearly wish they could move past the Roy Keane era.

But moving on is easier said than done when your former manager casts a shadow as long as Keane does.

Possessing a way with words every bit as venomous as the challenges that he snapped into during his playing days, Niall Quinn will be disappointed that Keane has re-opened some old wounds by claiming “interference in team affairs” was the reason he left Sunderland.

The Black Cats are fighting a relegation battle every bit as tense as the one that Keane presided over last season but, for supporters, the re-emergence of Keane dominated the agenda ahead of a must-win game against West Brom.

It is unlikely to distract the attention of the players quite so easily but still, the re-emergence of Keane to rake over old ground is something that Sunderland could have done without.

Quinn, having opened Pandora’s Box by appointing someone with such obvious Box Office appeal, is not so naive that he would have expected Keane to hold his tongue and smile politely when asked about his former club.

And Quinn will be happy enough with his counter argument – that Keane was granted unprecedented powers to transform Sunderland from top to bottom. It was only when results started to collapse and money was wasted on players that those powers were challenged by cash backer Ellis Short.

But however unreasonable Keane’s words sound, the charge still has the capacity to wound Sunderland – and Short, the man Quinn hopes will pour more money into the club in the summer.

Keane has already presented his version of the events that led to his departure with a detailed interview with the Irish Times in February, but there was nothing as barbed as the accusation that the top brass at Sunderland “moved the goal posts” and started to meddle in team affairs after Short became a major player at the club.

Speaking after being unveiled as Ipswich Town’s new manager, Keane said it was not the gradual unravelling of his summer plans to move Sunderland to the next level or a run of poor results that undermined his rule.

Instead, he maintains, he began to distrust the men who controlled the finances at the club.

“You might be better asking Niall or Ellis Short the reasons why I left the football club,” he said when asked about Sunderland at his first Press conference yesterday. “But the time had come for me to leave, without a shadow of a doubt. I was just finding out about different people and characters.

“One of the big conditions I had when I went to Sunderland was that there would be no interference with team affairs,” he said. “But, when someone tries to move the goalposts, it is nothing to do with contracts, it is about a promise with people at the club. I was disappointed because I had signed a three-year contract and the plan was on target, despite two or three poor results.

“Believe it or not, the results at the end had nothing to do with it. You have got to be relaxed and have trust in the people you are working with.