Roy Keane: I had short temper when in short trousers!

Roy Keane reckons that managing Premier League stars with combustible reputations won't faze him - because he's been dishing out flak since he was nine years old.

Keane has revealed he first tore into a team-mate when he was a kid playing for Rockmount in Cork.... because his pal wanted to go skate-boarding rather than training.

The Sunderland boss has assembled a potent mix of flamboyant stars during his summer spending spree, with "characters" like El-Hadji Diouf, Pascal Chimbonda, Djibril Cisse and Anton Ferdinand all likely to test his skills in discipline and diplomacy at some stage this season.

Asked about the challenge, Keane said: "That sort of conflict has never been a problem to me. I challenge people, eyeballing them. I am comfortable with saying 'you have taken your eye off the ball.'

"I have done it since I was eight or nine. I did it at Rockmount. I fell out with people when I was 10, 11. People who didn't train properly.

"I fell out with a good friend of mine, when we were kids, because he wouldn't go training one night, and wanted to go out on his skateboard. Didn't speak for years."

Keane recalls Rockmount AFC as a "relatively modest experience" that was to "shape my life," even to the extent of pulling his stars into line this season.

He dropped Chimbonda last week for turning up late for a prematch walk around the team hotel before the victory over Tottenham.

Diouf, Ferdinand and Cisse have all had off-field troubles, but that did not put Keane off. He has seen signs of encouragement in the way his side dug they way out of a hole against Nottingham Forest in the Carling Cup.

He added yesterday: "Part of the challenge of being a manager is to deal with different characters. The lads who have come in, I take how I see, and the way they behave around me.

"If I thought I was going to have a long and successful career without facing different characters I would be kidding myself.

"You talk about strong dressing rooms... if a player took his eye off the ball at United, they were told. I have seen a lot as a player, I dealt with it a lot as a player.

"I dealt with many players one to one, if I thought they were not pulling their weight. I was lucky that if I wasn't stepping in some other senior player was.

"I have not been put off by players' reputations. Look at all the managers who have been successful they seem to enjoy the challenge of different people.

"Maybe that was the downside of me before I finished. I thought everyone should be like me, and they are not."

Keane has already noticed the impact of his new signings on the atmosphere around the club, ahead of tomorrow's clash with Manchester City.

He added: "We have evolved and the club has a different feel to it now.

"In the last week we have won a couple of games this we we might not have last season. We are a different animal."

ROY'S GUIDE TO ANGER MANAGEMENT

ON FOOTBALLERS TURNING DOWN TRANSFERS...

"I'm talking about players who are different animals to when I was a player. They've had opportunities to go to clubs, particularly on loan, and said no. Footballers are changing these days. Some don't love the game as much as they should do."

ON WAGS.....

"Some players let their wives decide where they move. You can see it with a couple of big players now. Clearly their wives and girlfriends are running things and that's a bad sign."

ON PLAYERS TURNING UP LATE FOR TRAINING...

"We have given players the benefit of the doubt but enough is enough. There comes a time when you have to say 'Move on'."

ON WHY HE'S TRIED TO COOL IT AS A BOSS...

"I made the decision I would not be ranting and raving on the sidelines. If I'm going to lose my rag, I'll do it in the privacy of our dressing-room."