Roy Keane: Robbie Keane will be available for Germany clash – he’s not

Roy Keane is confident that Robbie Keane will be available for Ireland’s crucial Euro 2016 qualifier on Thursday night with Germany – despite the birth of his second child on Monday. In fact, he’s just proved that he can be pretty hilarious when he puts his mind to it – even if he jokes with the same hard-edged intensity that has come to characterise nearly everything else he does.

If he’s not giving current Premier League players and managers both barrels in terms of criticism, he’s coming out in favour of crunching tackles and physical play. “He’s done well in one or two of the last games off the bench and we probably expect Germany to have more possession than us so yeah we’d have to consider lads who are good on the counter-attack”. The Irish are four points ahead of the Scots, who face Group D’s second-placed side Poland in Glasgow on Thursday. I think we’re a stronger team; like you expect with any campaign, teams improve.

He later posted a message that the couple had been left “overwhelmed by the amount of well wishes we received since announcing the baby news”, describing his older son’s reaction as “pure innocence from a very excited, slightly confused 6-year-old”.

The former Aston Villa assistant Keane adopted a similar stance to that of O’Neill over Jack Grealish’s decision to opt to represent England rather than Ireland.

“If Shane starts I’m sure he’ll give us a lot”, said Keane.

“I think the manager did everything he could”.