Originally Posted by
Jolly Red Giant
Keane may have scored a lot of goals - but he did it at a level below the top strikers - the list you link to is really not relevant to the standard the strikers were playing at.
As I said before - Keane was a very good player - and imo should have actually been better. He always tended to chase the money.
Example - at Liverpool Keane played a total of 28 games and scored 7 goals (in a team with not a lot of striking options) and was gone within six months. John Aldridge was a year older (29) than Keane when he was signed as Liverpool's replacement for Ian Rush - in his two full seasons he played 92 games and scored 60 goals - this despite the fact that Rush returned to Liverpool the following season - Rush is four years younger than Aldridge), winning the title and the FA cup. Furthermore, Liverpool were banned from Europe at this time because of Heysel. Aldridge went on to become the first non-Basque player to play for Real Sociedad, being the club's top scorer for the two seasons he played there.
Despite being Ireland's top scorer - I wouldn't even rate Keane as the best striker Ireland ever had. In my view that honour should go to Jimmy Dunne who scored 13 goals in 15 games between 1930-1939 (international games were few and far between in the 1930s) - Dunne scored 143 goals in 173 games over seven seasons for Sheffield United in the top division and he later won a league title with Arsenal. Cliff Bastin, one of the greatest ever English players ever, said of Dunne that he was 'one of the best five centre forwards I have ever seen'.
For me - I would prefer any of Dunne, Davy Walsh, Don Givens or Frank Stapleton in an Irish team ahead of Keane - imo they brought much more to the team than Keane ever did (and two other underrated players would also come into the mix here - Michael Robinson and Shane Long).
Politically - Keane has always run with the hares and chased with the hounds - and he is currently doing that in Israel. He is managing a big club in a small pond and what he has done before Israel was lacklustre to say the least. This will pad his CV - and maybe if he can repeat next season he will get an offer at a bigger club. But I suspect he will eventually be caught out for the spoofer that he is. I think that his ultimate goal is to manage in the MLS - when he was playing there Keane and his wife attempted to create an entire spin-off series of promotional businesses (like the Beckhams) and it didn't come off for them - he could try chasing the almighty dollar again by managing in the MLS. Don't be surprised to see him pop up at Inter Miami or one of the two LA teams.
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