WORLD CUP 2002: Roy Keane's former international captain Andy Townsend professed to having mixed feelings on Keane's expulsion from the World Cup squad, sympathising with his criticism of the organisational side of the trip to Saipan but conceding that Mick McCarthy had no option but to act as he did following Keane's attack on his manager.

"We've lost an inspirational player, the figurehead of our team," Townsend told Eamon Dunphy on Today FM's The Last Word yesterday. "He's been immense the past couple of years and it's a great shame he won't be there with the green shirt on his back, leading us out.

"Having said all that I would not have suffered that (Keane's attack on McCarthy), I couldn't have that - if I was manager I would have done the same. You can't have that sort of dialogue going on in front of the players. If it was private, fine.

When it happens in the open the manager has to make a stand - Mick had no alternative, he had to do what he did."

"But when you've got someone as precious as Roy Keane you've got to try and manage him carefully. When I heard Roy was rooming alone I just pictured him simmering on his own and I wished he had someone like Paul McGrath or Denis Irwin around him, someone who could say 'forget all about that crap'."

"He had become a bit isolated and some of the boys have started to fear him a bit. Once he started going down that road he'd left himself wide open, there was an inevitably to it all, it was an accident waiting to happen.

"The English press has been portraying him as a thug - he's not like that, he's an intelligent, sensible, quiet boy. When he puts on his boots he becomes something else, that's what's made him what he is. I always thought he was a bloody good player but he has become a truly, truly great player, he is world class.

"When I read his comments in The Irish Times I found myself nodding. The FAI are a joke, fools masquerading as officials - I'm sorry, they are a joke, always have been. They need someone in there who knows what the bloody hell they're doing."

"But as an international manager there is only so much you can be responsible for, you have to delegate and we've just got a load of clowns running our ship, I'm afraid - that's the way it is. The people Mick delegates to just aren't good enough, it's as simple as that. The training side of it, no balls, the pitch, all of that, I do think falls in to Mick's jurisdiction."

"It's a crying shame that it's ended up like this, we won't see one of the best players from this neck of the woods at the World Cup. We've got nothing to replace him with and that's not being disrespectful to good pros like Matt Holland and Mark Kinsella, but they're not in his class. The whole thing is just a shame."