Sunderland boss hits out at players
Difficult season or not, Sunderland manager Roy Keane is refusing to abandon his principles of calling it as he sees it.
And that includes scorning the chance to take the easy way out after games he feels his players deserved nothing from.
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"Do I feel hard done by?" he responded in the wake of a spirited second-half comeback from Sunderland on Saturday when Tottenham's one-goal lead looked as though it might be too slender.
"No, I don't," said the Irishman. "Why should I?"
"If you give two goals away like we did, then you don't deserve to win any football match.
"You can dress it up any way you like, but the game's about what you do in the final third, both defending and attacking, and in that respect we weren't good enough.
"I give credit to their goalkeeper, who made some outstanding saves, but when you give a goal away after 111 seconds, especially with our away record, it's not ideal.
"Lack of concentration, you could argue is the story of our season.
"At the top level, it's concentration that wins you matches.
"Often you find that there's not much in it between two teams in terms of ability, but the team that concentrates most gets the victory.
"A lot of what being a footballer, a top footballer, is about is what goes on between your ears more than anything else.
"And if you start a game like we did, a goal down at Tottenham in two minutes then you're going to have problems.
"The last goal – a straight ball upfield from their keeper that none of our players touch before it reaches Robbie Keane, well ...
"You can talk all you want about what happens in the 87 or so minutes between those two goals, but it's the two goals that are the most important part of the match – they took their chances, we didn't.
"With our away record, you just can't afford to give away a goal in two minutes.
"You are not going to dominate any game for 90 minutes but managers the world over say before the start of any game – let's have a decent start."
Keane accepted that his team made a fist of the game in the second half, but he couldn't get beyond their unimpressive opening 45 minutes and he felt that any pluses were outweighed by the fact that when it comes to a cutting edge – both in attack and defence – his side are simply not cutting it.
Saturday's eighth straight away defeat was the Wearsiders' tenth in 12 away league matches this term.
Defeat also left Sunderland in the relegation zone, albeit only on goal difference from Wigan and Birmingham.
Keane shrugged: "Spurs had chances before half-time and were picking us off, as good players would.
"When you come away from home, you are going to be under the cosh, but we hung in there and you're always in the game when it's 1-0.
"But we are making it hard for ourselves with the goals we are conceding. At this moment in time, particularly away from home, we are our own worst enemies.
"I wouldn't have thought our poor away record is preying on the players' minds because our last three games – against Reading, Blackburn and now Spurs – could have brought us points.
"But they didn't.
"That's the reality of the Premiership.
"It's brutal and that's why we love the game.
"I'm not going to say we were unlucky. The defeat was nothing to do with luck. Nothing whatsoever, trust me on that."
Nyron Nosworthy and Paul McShane were both culpable in the loss of the opening goal to Aaron Lennon.
Keane added: "We gave Tottenham a chance after 111 seconds and that's nothing to do with luck, it's concentration levels and the Premiership requires the highest level of concentration."
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Friday 10 February 2012
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