A lot has been made of Roy Keane's decision to leave three players behind when the team bus left for Barnsley last week, with some even brave enough to suggest in the post-match press conference at Oakwell that Sunderland's manager was a hypocrite.
Brave words indeed, but maybe some people are starting to get a little bit lippy, just as some of his players had started to take liberties with their time keeping.
Keane hasn't, to everyone's general surprise, snapped or even snarled at a member of the press pack since he decided to pursue a career in the dugout. There have been a few glares and witty put downs (See January entry Funny Man Roy Keane), but on the whole he has been civil and calm.
But when one journalist decided to provoke the Irishman by suggesting that it was a bit rich for him to take such a tough stance on time keeping when he had famously kept the whole of the Republic of Ireland squad waiting in 1994, it provoked the first spark of real anger since he arrived at Sunderland.
With an icy stare which did not lift for several uncomfortable seconds Keane said: "Are you saying there's one rule for me and and a different one for the players? Don't patronise me. Get your facts straight, I was never late for a match.
"This wasn't the first time they were late. One or two, maybe is ok, but three? No way. I'm for the team always and nothing will stop that."
The point Keane was trying to make is that it will always be case of "do what I say, not what I did as a player". He is a manager in the Sir Alex Ferguson/Brian Clough mould and if he had been persistently late, they would have left without him and he would have trained with the reserves just like Anthony Stokes, Tobias Hysen and Martin Fulop had to at the weekend.
Keane got into more than his fair share of scraps, on and off the field as a young man, but he arguably become a better and more influential player when he kicked all the bad habits (Kicking other players doesn't necessarily apply here).
He got away with a lot, as his autobiography tells us in terms of drinking and wild behaviour away from football, but it was done - if these thing ever can be - at the right time.
In the build up to a game, Keane was the ultimate professional, driven and disciplined to give his all for the team. As far as he is concerned shoddy time keeping and lazy habits are inexcusable because they undermine the team ethic.
If the players can't accept that or believe they can get away with things because they had a flick through Keane's life story, they are mistaken, as Hysen, Fulop and Stokes have already discovered.
The same is probably true for journalists who think they can try and be clever with him in press conferences...
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