ROY KEANE will now know precisely why Graeme Souness repeatedly likened north-east football politics to those of "a third-world banana republic".
The former Newcastle United manager regularly lamented the region's "hysterical" behind-the-scenes rumour mill and would doubtless have raised his eyebrows at heavily spun local radio reports declaring Keane was on the verge of being sacked yesterday. So fevered was the fallout that bookmakers suspended betting on the possibility of the Corkman either being axed or walking out last night.
"Complete nonsense," retorted Sunderland. Keane has been brilliantly described as an "anti-authority authoritarian" but a combination of spending €93 million on players in two years, a decision to play hardball over contract negotiations and the small matter of four successive defeats has diluted his autonomy.
As recently as last month the idea of reporting "Keane faces axe" would have been unthinkable but, suddenly, questioning his judgment is no longer seen as sacrilege on Wearside. The boos echoing around the Stadium of Light following Wednesday night's 2-1 League Cup reverse against Blackburn Rovers had barely faded before the lines into Radio 5 Live's football phone-in were jammed with callers demanding Keane's head.
This shift in the relationship between the former Manchester United captain and a hitherto unconditionally adoring audience comes at a time when Sunderland have played some of their best passing football in years.
Yet betrayed by appalling finishing, the team have followed up a famous local derby victory against Newcastle by losing at Stoke City and Chelsea - where Keane was sent to the stands by the referee Martin Atkinson during a 5-0 drubbing and is now on a disrepute charge - and at home to Portsmouth and Blackburn.
Indeed, as Sunderland's squad head to Ewood Park for today's Premier League rematch with Blackburn, the investors who form Sunderland's controlling Drumaville Consortium are becoming impatient. After backing Keane to the hilt in the transfer market it is understood that they cannot understand why he and his lawyer, Michael Kennedy, are making such a meal of negotiations to extend a contract which expires next June.
With Niall Quinn, Sunderland's chairman and a conciliator par excellence, tipped to pour oil on troubled waters, the odds are that Keane will sign a legal document keeping him at the club for two or three more seasons.
In time he may laugh at yesterday's hysteria but, nonetheless, it could prove something of a watershed in the career of a man who, as a player, traditionally stalled on agreeing new deals safe in the knowledge that his club wanted him more than he needed them. Roy Keane remains immensely important to Sunderland but the Irishman is possibly realising that even he is not quite indispensable.
