Not for the first time recently Alex Ferguson's general reluctance to publicly criticise his players has been cited by Roy Keane as one of his former manager's most admirable attributes, and, it would seem, it's an "attribute" Keane is intent on replicating in the early days, at least, at Sunderland.

On three occasions during his team's 1-1 draw against Leicester City on Saturday Keane leapt from the dugout, incensed, remonstrating with his players for sundry failings, amongst them woefully sloppy passes and a failure to track back when Leicester counter-attacked.

By the time he spoke to the press after the game, however, the only person he was criticising was himself, whatever was said to his players would remain in-house.

"It was a tired performance," he said, "and I take responsibility for that. I thought about freshening things up and I should have. Three games in a week is hard for any player, especially in the position we were in. That's my job and I didn't do it really well today. Leicester probably smelt blood, we had some tired legs out there."

There was no criticism of the team, none either of individual players, Liam Miller's off-day also put down to tiredness. Republic of Ireland supporters might hope the midfielder once burdened with the tag of "the new Roy Keane" might be rediscovered at Sunderland, after Saturday Keane would probably settle for the "old Liam Miller", the one who showed such promise at Celtic. His 64 minutes against Leicester confirmed what was suspected: any confidence he ever had has drained from Miller. Keane's task is to make his fellow Cork man believe in himself again. The manager, though, insisted he was happy enough with the result.

"It was a reality check for everyone at the football club . . . At any football club, in any team, you've got to work your socks off. We didn't do that in the first half but credit to the players after going a goal down, we showed character. It's a disappointed dressingroom and that's what I like to see. If you have got the character the players showed in the second half, you've got half a chance."