FOOTBALL PUNDIT EAMON Dunphy was highly critical of Ireland assistant boss Roy Keane in the wake of Ireland’s 4-1 win over USA tonight.

Speaking on RTÉ, Dunphy accused Keane of damaging the reputation of Irish soccer with his recent behaviour.

“I don’t like the team to be figures of fun,” he said. “The assistant manager should not be commanding the energy and thoughts of the media, the manager, week after week, training camp after training camp. There’s just too much of it. If it was a once off incident, no problem.

“The stuff with Jack Grealish — I don’t know what Paul Lambert, the Villa manager would think about it, never mind the impact it has on Ireland… He had no right to diminish the player in public, it’s just not on.

“The stuff that the Everton chairman said is travelling around the sports world. It’s bad. You have to be serious about your work — look at the Irish rugby team.

“Roy Keane’s visibility and the comments he’s making is bad for the team. It’s bad for Irish soccer on a number of levels.

“We’re not running a comedy show here. We’re trying to qualify for a major tournament. It’s hugely important for the players and the people who don’t want it to be undermined by this kind of nonsense.”

Fellow pundit Richie Sadlier also criticised the recent comments by the assistant boss, but suggested they would have minimal impact on the Irish team.

“If it was him and O’Neill thinking there was some value in saying it, that’s one thing, but I don’t know what the value is in bringing that into the public domain.

“If, as I suspect, he got a bit riled by journalists’ questions, or he couldn’t control himself, well that’s just a weakness in the job.

“There’s a certain diplomacy involved. I don’t know what goes on at Everton and it doesn’t matter whether anything he said touched on the truth. Should someone in his position be speaking that way?

“It’s very plausible that no player in that squad gives a toss. The comments of the assistant manager at a press conference — they might find them entertaining or dismiss them all together.”

Despite praising the team’s performance against the US tonight, Dunphy also said there were still “questions” about manager Martin O’Neill.

“That nine months he had to prepare that first competitive game against Georgia, he came out of left-field with a team that had never played together before — that does not make sense.

“We had a match against Oman the week before — if you’re going to play that team [against Georgia], you need to play it the week before. Again against Scotland, he plays two up front out of the blue, with Jon Walters and Shane Long in a 4-4-2 — there’s no pattern or logic there.

“I don’t think Martin necessarily knows his best team and I don’t know whether he knows if he can get away with playing two in midfield — I don’t think he can, he needs to play three in midfield.”

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