Niall Quinn lifts lid on relationship with Roy Keane and predicts potential return for former Sunderland boss

In the first part of an exclusive interview with Ladbrokes Fanzone, former Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn talks about Roy Keane’s reign as Black Cats manager.

Ferocious Roy Keane changed the culture in city of Sunderland

Is Roy Keane a phone call away from me these days? No, definitely not, although that’s not a good or a bad thing, I must say! I don’t get to see him. I’m not at games the way I used to be.

But looking back on my relationship with him, and particularly his time at Sunderland, I say this: he didn’t just change the culture in our dressing room, he changed the culture in the city of Sunderland. That’s how big a job he did, and that’s why I’ll always say the man is box office. Always was, and always will be.

I just remember so fondly how he turned the dressing room inside out, and how he got a winning mentality back into a dressing room that had just come off a season where they had the worst points total ever, in the history of the Premier League. Relegated with a shockingly low points total. There were 13 players when we got there. To turn that side into Championship winners inside nine months…it was just incredible.

Roy brought something very special to the table, and I’m always going to be indebted to him for that, as are the group of people who owned the club at the time. It was an amazing performance from a young man who’d never managed before, but at the same time it wasn’t a surprise, because we’re talking about a man with a ferocious appetite for success, and for wanting to do well.

Stories of players celebrating Roy’s Sunderland exit untrue

I had some great times with Roy. I understand his desire to win was at a level which some of us couldn’t even understand; the ferociousness of it, and that desire to drive us. We’re all built a bit differently, but I’ve never come across anything or anyone quite like Roy, when it came to getting a result. Every time. His attitude is just exemplary.

There are lots of things we could speak about when it comes to Roy, but I think he’s just such a good football pundit. He’s almost on the pitch, in the circumstance himself, and he’s giving us a view that not many of us have. Roy’s demands are just so strong, and it hasn’t left him, throughout his career, on or off the pitch. He’s not making it up, that stuff that he does and says on TV. He has a ferocious appetite for the game and, like I said, he’s box office. I wouldn’t like to be on the end of some of his lashings! He’s a huge character, larger than life, and he did brilliantly for me at Sunderland.

I find it difficult to criticise Roy. You know, we have had things we’ve fallen out about, but I just think he’s a massive part of the game. The stories of players celebrating when he left Sunderland, they just aren’t true. It was a pity he left, actually. He was under no pressure to leave. He’d done his bit, he worked really hard and, you have to remember, he came straight from being a player, into the managerial job at Sunderland. He had a phenomenal time with us, but he just felt it was the right time to go. He’s spoken himself about the fall-out with the owner at the time, and I think in the end he’d just had enough.

I respected that decision, and I really thought, actually, that our loss was going to be someone else’s advantage. Once he’d had time to restock, and get himself back on the train, I’ve got to admit I’m surprised it didn’t go better for him at Ipswich. I really thought it would.

Roy was different class and woke up sleepy dressing room

I’ve followed him as a number two, at Aston Villa, then with Martin [O’Neill], both internationally and at Nottingham Forest, but I think he’s more of a number one, personally. If he ever goes back into the dugout, I think it will be as a number one, I know he’s spoken about that in the past. And if anyone wants to find out what he did for us, and how good he was as a manager, they only have to pick up the phone to me. He was different class, in a dressing room that needed more than a wakening. It needed a real good kick up the backside, and it needed players performing at a level they just hadn’t been anywhere near in previous years, and Roy did that.

We didn’t break the bank, either. We bought lots of players, but we sold well. I’ll always give Roy huge credit.

Not getting Sunderland job last year may be a blessing

You hear things, but the honest answer is that I don’t know how close Roy was to becoming Sunderland manager last year. I don’t really know of the Sunderland hierarchy right now, but to be honest with you, I think that when you look at the success he’s had on Sky as a pundit, and the job Tony Mowbray has done, it might have been a blessing.

They always say don’t go back. I always remember Howard Kendall going back to Everton. He had the most incredible record as a manager there, and everyone thought that when he returned, things would go back to as they were, and that the club would shoot straight back up the table and start winning things again. But that didn’t happen, and then his star was less shiny, if you like. That’s happened at a number of clubs. Very rarely do you enjoy success on two separate occasions as a manager for the same club – so maybe it was best for all parties that Roy didn’t get the job in the end.