Keane seeks inspiration from 'genius' Clough

The new Sunderland manager, Roy Keane, hopes a little of the late Brian Clough's "genius" has rubbed off on him. Clough brought Keane to England from Cobh Ramblers in 1990 and introduced him to his Nottingham Forest midfield.

"Brian Clough kept things very, very simple," Keane said. "Before my first game for Forest he said to me, 'You get it, pass to a red shirt, and you move'. That was his advice and I made a career out of it. I'll be trying to simplify things. Brian Clough's ideas were very simple but there was a genius behind it. He had his ways of getting the right players to play in the right way.

"Was he the biggest inspiration? With the amount of time I spent at [Manchester] United, I will have to say Alex Ferguson. But without Brian Clough I wouldn't have got to Alex Ferguson."