The original version of this article on Roy Keane's managerial record was written by Conor Neville in 2015. With Keane now in the mix for the Ireland job, we've revisited it to re-examine the Corkman's suitability for the role.
On paper, Roy Keane's managerial record is nothing special.
He guided a well-resourced Sunderland to the Championship in his first season and secured their Premier League status the following year, though not with enough ease to satisfy his critics.
The following season, with Sunderland showing no sign of improvement and new investor Ellis Short making unfriendly noises, Keane upped and left. At the time of his departure, they had just drifted into the relegation zone but safety could hardly have been said to be out of reach. They were in 18th spot.
Shortly afterwards, he took over at Ipswich Town. His two-year spell was devoid of any conspicuous highs and he left the club in a moderately worse position than that which he found it in. They failed to properly challenge for promotion during his reign.
Flying in the face of long-standing precedent, many assumed that because he was a great player, he simply had to have the tools for management.
Once it became apparent he was far from a managerial genius, public opinion shifted wildly in the other direction and decided he was clearly useless and only a chairman who wasn't of sound mind could give him a job in English football.
With Keane among the littany of names - Barry, Carsley, Hughton, Allardyce, Mowbray, even...Brian Kerr - linked with the vacant Ireland job, perhaps its time to reassess Roy Keane's standing as an out-and-out manager.
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Re-examining Roy Keane's managerial record
The way many talk now, Roy Keane languishes with Steve Kean and Les Reed in the managerial hall of losers.
Even the BBC are falling prey to this ludicrous hyperbole. In 2016, Keane was grouped among Steve McLaren and others in a poll to find the worst Premier League manager of all time.
This is of a piece with his career generally, where it has been almost impossible to find a balanced view on Keane.
In his quest to find another managerial job in England (a quest which has seemingly quietened down in recent years, bar the odd rumour here and there), he is currently labouring under a very damaging perception. Namely, that he is a poor man-manager who humiliates and intimidates players who might need a bit of cosseting.
Chief among the charges against Keane is that he lacks empathy.
Stories like the Clive Clarke one don't do him too many favours.
Clarke, a player on the books at Sunderland had been farmed out on loan to Leicester City and entered cardiac arrest during a game at the City Ground. Keane was moved to express surprise that the cardiologists found evidence of a heart inside his body. 'You'd never have guessed from the way he played', Keane said.
This cruel but undeniably funny remark was regarded as indicative of Keane's man-management style.
In the public mind, he seemed to be linked with Graeme Souness, a player possessing a similar skill-set and personality who allegedly showed many of the same deficiencies as a manager.
But then, there is his sensitive treatment of Shane Supple which needs to be lobbed into the mix on the credit side.
I remember going in and telling him I was leaving and he was brilliant. He knew where he was coming from... I wasn't sure which way he was going to take it but he said 'I understand where you're coming from'. He offered me time off if I wanted to clear my head or anything like that. And I said no it was done. He said 'No, I respect your decision'. From that side of things, he was brilliant. I couldn't thank him enough for that.
The Guardian's Daniel Taylor has pointed out that Keane was always accommodating to members of staff wanting time off due to mental difficulties or problems with their children.
Of course, there is also Keane's time as an assistant manager to Martin O'Neill during the 2010s, which saw the pair guide Ireland to the knockout stages of EURO 2016, before a disappointing and dour end to their reign in charge.
It's hard to know just how much impact Keane had on the playing style of the squad and all of that, but he certainly made his mark off the pitch, with one or two players on the end of the Corkman's infamous harsh criticism.
Still, it seems that his first season as a manager has been forgotten with remarkable speed.
He took over a team who had lost their first few league games and had just been bumped out of the League Cup by Bury. After Keane's miracle work in getting them to the Premier League, he would keep them there, and it would not be until 2017 that they were relegated again.
Keane has, at times, seemed miffed by his standing in the managerial game. As he wrote in his 2015 autobiography,
They say the Championship is the toughest league in the world to win and I won it as a manager. I have to say that. No one else does.
The task at hand for the Ireland job is massive, and Roy Keane has been out of the managerial game for quite some time now - but perhaps he might deserve more credit than he has seemed to get in recent years.
SEE ALSO: 'The Crowd Won't Go Home' - Jack Charlton's Ireland Swansong At Anfield
