By Duncan Mackay
December 20 – Ipswich Town manager Roy Keane (pictured) is to send some of his training staff to work with Britain’s leading Olympic coaches in the hope of picking up some tips that will help the club return to the Premier League.
The idea has been initiated by Simon Clegg, Ipswich’s chief executive, who is the former chief executive of the British Olympic Association.
Clegg said: ”I have had conversations with a couple of coaches who may be going to look at some ways that other sports train over the rest of the season.
“I have identified some specific areas where particular sports are at the cutting edge of technology, whether it’s nutrition, exercise and physiology, whatever it might be.
“I think over the fullness of time some of the coaching staff will go and have a look to see whether what’s happening in those sports is applicable for what we might do at Ipswich Town.
“But what I don’t want to do is to articulate that too much because if we find ourselves at a competitive advantage, the last thing we want to do is share it with our competitors.”
Clegg has already approached Darren Campbell, the 1998 European 100 metres champion was a member of Britain’s 4x100m relay team that won the Olympic gold medal in Athens in 2004, to help out on the players speedwork.
Clegg said: ”I had Darren Campbell, the Olympic gold medallist, come as my guest to the Cardiff game.
“Darren is now doing some work with the Welsh Rugby Union and a couple of other sports and with Manchester United and Arsenal, and those sort of links are there.”
Clegg (pictured) claimed that the idea had been positively embraced by Keane, who he insisted he was enjoying working with.
He said: ”It is quite bizarre and the only thing I can take from it is that this tabloid image has followed him from his time as a player where he was a very hard player, there’s no going away from that.
“That followed him up to Sunderland.
“By his own admission Sunderland was his first managerial position, he was learning the ropes and he was on a steep learning curve.
“He’ll tell you that he’s still on a steep learning curve here, but all the time I think that you’re seeing the real Roy Keane coming out.
“He doesn’t suffer fools.
“He doesn’t like it when people ask him the same question.
“If you ask him a question you get a very honest and a very straightforward answer, but the journalists’ style of asking the same question again perhaps in a slightly different way to elicit a slightly different answer is not something which goes down well with him.”
There had been speculation earlier in the season that Keane’s job was in jeopardy as Ipswich dropped into the bottom three of the Coca-Cola Championship.
They have now moved out of the relegation zone and Clegg is confident that the club will continue its upwards trajectory under the former Manchester United and Celtic player.
He said: ”The manager’s not been put under any pressure by myself or [owner] Marcus [Evans].
“Quite frankly, he doesn’t need it, Roy Keane puts enough pressure on himself.
“The reason that we appointed him is that he’s a winner, he’s a person who is driven by winning.
“He’s not happy when we lose, he’s not happy when we draw when he feels we should win and actually he’s not necessarily totally happen when we win as long as we win with an optimum performance.
“He’s an individual who is driven by maximising every aspect of his life, so after the 3-1 win against Blackpool last week, which was a fantastic result, he was still frustrated because he thought it should have been five or six, which is just what you want in a manager.
“I am excited about the second half of the season.
“The last couple of games have been really good. I think they have given a massive boost of confidence to everyone, particularly the Blackpool game.
“We’re on a 10-game unbeaten run, we’ve only conceded two in the last five matches and we’re out of the relegation zone for the first time this season.
“People are very excited and very upbeat and who knows what’s going to be possible over the next couple of months?
“I am confident that you will see the club making significant progress up the Championship table between now and the end of the season.”
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