Robbie needs to sit down with his ego

The only thing stopping Robbie Keane from leaving Tottenham Hotspur is his own ego, writes Conor Heneghan.

With only a week to go until the end of the transfer window, Ireland captain Robbie Keane continues to wallow in the wilderness at White Hart Lane. Potential moves to Birmingham, Fulham and West Ham appear to have fallen by the wayside and the prospect of Keane wasting away in the Tottenham reserves until the summer does not seem that unlikely at this stage.

Keane’s exorbitant wage demands and his reluctance to leave London were deemed to be the main factors behind the collapse of the Birmingham move, while his move to Upton Park was apparently indelibly linked with Martin O’Neill taking over the Hammers. Given O’Neill’s man-management skills, such a move could have been a massive boost to Keane’s career, but O’Neill to West Ham never materialised and it looks as if Jabba the Hut lookalike Avram Grant will remain in situ until the end of the season without Robbie as part of the squad.

The most worrying thing about Keane’s situation for Irish fans is that his malaise at club level has most definitely affected his displays in a green jersey.

With January nearly over at this stage, Birmingham are the only club to have made a concrete offer for Keane and although the man himself suggested that the move was never on and was merely a publicity stunt on behalf of the Blues, you’d have to ask exactly why he was so reluctant to move to the midlands.

Why not Birmingham?

Some reasons instantly spring to the mind. From a personal point of view, he’d have to uproot his family and take a drastic cut in his wages, which are reported to be in excess of €75,000 a week.

Football-wise, it’s obvious that Birmingham are hardly the most fashionable outfit around. They play a disciplined but boring style of football that relies on soaking up pressure from the opposition and making the most of limited opportunities at the other end. Although their defence can be mean at times, particularly away from home, in attack they are rudderless and completely lacking any sort of spark, which explains the fact that they are the second lowest scorers in the Premier League with 21 goals, including a measly ten in 11 games at St. Andrews.

Keane has settled in London with wife Claudine and Robbie junior

Although Birmingham were looking to Keane to provide that spark, he probably had a look at the squad and probably didn’t think he would be provided with enough opportunities to make it a worthwhile move. Financially, it clearly didn’t appeal either and Birmingham weren’t shy on revealing that Keane was a player they simply couldn’t afford. At 30, however, and considering the way his career has spiralled downwards in recent years, Robbie cannot afford to be so choosy.

Lies, damned lies and statistics

The statistics make for stark reading indeed. Keane has played a grand total of 226 minutes in the league for Spurs this season and his last appearance against Everton earlier this month, given that a deal with Birmingham seemed inevitable at that stage, was clearly intended to be something of a last hurrah, a chance for a man who is still a fans favourite to say goodbye to the Spurs faithful.

He has scored only once for Tottenham this season - in the League Cup against Arsenal, a goal that was celebrated with almost embarrassing gusto. He hasn’t scored in the Premier League since 2009 and hasn’t been even close to a regular starting spot since returning from Liverpool in January of that year after a move that was meant to establish Keane as one of the Premier League’s finest but instead turned out to be an absolute disaster.

Keane believes himself to be a player worthy of the big clubs and the big wages when that day is clearly gone.

In fact, the only time that Keane has scored with any regularity of late was when he bagged 16 goals in 19 appearances while on loan to Celtic this time last year and although Keane showed glimpses of his old self north of the border, that pretty impressive record is more attributable to the poor standard of the Scottish Premier League than to Keane’s ability. If you have any doubt about that, consider the plight of Kris Boyd, who is currently struggling with Championship side Middlesbrough after 26 goals for Rangers last season.

The most worrying thing about Keane’s situation for Irish fans is that his malaise at club level has most definitely affected his displays in a green jersey. We haven’t seen Robbie produce a performance of note for Ireland since that fateful night in Paris in November of 2009 and in his most recent displays in the European qualifiers against Russia and Slovakia, he was a long way off the pace.

On current form, Keane would arguably not even get in Ireland’s first XI. Kevin Doyle is back among the goals for Wolves and Shane Long is setting the Championship on fire at the moment. Even Leon Best is doing a decent job filling in for Andy Carroll at Newcastle.

Shane Long could be given a chance for Ireland at Keane's expense

We’re not saying that any of the above three are superior players to Keane, far from it. Doyle, though, is playing regularly with Wolves and is nearly as established as Keane in the Ireland team at the moment, and on current form, it is hard to ignore the case of Long, who has scored eight in his last eight games for Reading.

Keane far from finished

Unthinkable as it may seem, it would not be a massive surprise if Keane was dropped at Long’s expense for the Carling Nations Cup clash with Wales next month. It would be far from ideal as a Long/Doyle strikeforce would be high on energy and effort, but low on the spark and bit of magic that Keane, with 45 goals for Ireland, is still capable of, providing he is fully fit and firing at club level.

The problem with Robbie Keane at present is that he seems to be living in the past. He believes himself to be a player worthy of the big clubs and the big wages when that day is clearly gone. The best course of action for all concerned is for Keane to get out of Spurs as soon as possible, even if that means a new pay packet and a new city and battling relegation instead of battling for Champions League places. The sooner Keane realises this, the better.

Harry Redknapp has clearly given up on him; if he’s not careful there won’t be many more managers willing to take a chance on a man for whom time is fast running out to salvage his ailing career.