Keane wants one prize he's never claimed

Nov 12 2008 by Luke Edwards, The Journal

THERE is not much missing from Roy Keane’s CV but the Carling Cup is one of them. Chief sports writer Luke Edwards finds out why Sunderland’s manager believes it is so important to him now.

AT times in his career, Roy Keane has given the impression the Carling Cup is little more than an unwanted distraction which gets in the way of the real business of competing for league titles and European Cups.

Then again, when you are the captain of an all-conquering side like Manchester United, your priorities and ambitions are on a completely different scale to those of a club like Sunderland.

The Premier League remains the be all and end all for every manager and the chairmen they answer to. With so much money at stake should the disaster of relegation strike, top flight football is simply too valuable for anything to be considered a higher priority.

Cup football is not what it once was in English football, with both the FA and Carling Cups suffering because of the Premier League’s omnipotence, but while Keane had, in his own words, “bigger fish to fry” at Old Trafford, Sunderland’s manager has belatedly recognised its significance.

Not only does the Carling Cup come with the reward of European football for the winners, it is a piece of silverware which, when the razzmatazz, income and hype is stripped away from the Premier League, will mean more to supporters in ten years time than any three points from a run-of-the-mill league encounter.

“The prospect of European football is one of the main incentives in the competition,” said Keane, who will send out a full strength side when Blackburn visit the Stadium of Light tonight to compete for a place in the quarter-final of the competition.

“It was looked down on for a few years I suppose, particularly when a lot of clubs seem to say they would not be taking it seriously.

“I could understand the bigger clubs using squad rotation, but I think lesser clubs were criticised for using squad rotation when really it was an opportunity for them to do well, win a Cup and get into Europe.

“I think it is good that the European carrot is still dangled and I think the competition has improved in the last few years, it’s profile has been lifted a lot.

“You have to remember, the teams that have won it over the last few years, you can see what it means to them when they do. It means a hell of a lot. If it is a chance for your club to get to a quarter or semi-final they have to go for it and that is what we shall do.

“My biggest disappointment in my time here is the absence of any Cup excitement.”

As a player, Keane was right to regard the league cup as an after-thought, a footnote in the story of a season which brought the lure of more glittering and glamorous prizes. But he is not a player anymore and Sunderland, having waited for more than 35 years for a trophy, will gladly take whatever he can give them.

“I never won it as a player, but it isn’t a regret as such,” said Keane. “I think I lost four or five finals so maybe mentally I didn’t go into it right. I lost to Villa, to United when I was at Forest, lost to Liverpool, I think I have lost three or four finals in the League Cup, but looking back, maybe mentally, I was thinking I have bigger fish to fry.

“That was then, though, and obviously I would have liked to have won it looking back. When I played in finals I wanted to win. We lost about four finals when I was a player, and three FA Cups, so I lost a lot of finals. It would be nice to get there with Sunderland because it is a big reward if you win it.”

Keane believes a cup run is exactly what the Black Cats need to maintain momentum which is in danger of grinding to a halt after three successive league defeats.

That run has done much to squash the euphoria which followed the Wear-Tyne derby win over Newcastle United and it has also sent the team tumbling into the bottom three of a congested league.

With this evening’s cup clash with Blackburn also followed by a return trip to Ewood Park for a league fixture next weekend, this is an important game for many reasons.

Keane added: “The bottom line is we could do with a win. We have lost three games in a row and you can sense the negativity surrounding the place, in the media, but that’s part of the challenge.

“I still feel we should have three or four more points than we have, but I said that last year as well. It’s about going out there and getting them. We have been a little unfortunate, we probably didn’t deserve to draw the game against Portsmouth let alone lose it, so that was hard to take. We could have been two points better off after the Fulham game, but the official ruled out a perfectly good goal by Kieran Richardson and we drew the game.

“The table is so tight, those two extra points would have put us in a much higher position. But we have to pick ourselves up and this is a great chance for us to reach the last eight of a cup competition, which this club hasn’t done for a very long time. This is a big week for the football club.”