Is Roy Keane playing with fire at Sunderland?

Another great article from former Republic of Ireland forward Tony Cascarino, where Tony questions the recent signings that Keane has made including Pascal Chimbonda, El Hadji Diouf, and Djibril Cisse. I disagree with Tony on his views though as I think Roy is doing the best he can within his resources to bring in players that can help make Sunderland a respectable team within the Premier League and keep them out of a relegation battle. All 3 players do have question marks attached to them as they have had their successes and failures in the Premier League, but given the resources available to Roy Keane he's doing the best that he can to bring in quality players.

Roy is not going to be able to sign 11 Roy Keane's, nor should he. When he played for Manchester United he played alongside plenty of similar players to the ones that he signed. Dwight Yorke, Andy Cole, Eric Cantona, David Beckham, etc. Roy did his part and worked alongside these players to help Man U win. Given the long term injury to Kenwyne Jones he needed quality and depth at the forward position.

I think we will see an improvement in the Sunderland team, which leads to another competition that Roy is in. His competitors include Paul Ince, Mark Hughes, Steve Bruce, Bryan Robson, and who knows else in the race to succeed Alex Ferguson whenever he eventually does decide to step down as manager at Man U. This leads to looking at Roy Keane's goal, which aren't necessarily to build a Sunderland side that will remain in the Premiership for 5-10 years with a nucleus of talented young players who he can build a squad around. Roy Keane needs to put together a team and win now. The more immediate success that he has, the better are his chances to succeed Fergie at Man U. Interesting stuff and very complicated. We'll see how it all plays out this season.