But Keane may soon start to wonder if his words are having any effect. When he signed his new contract two years ago, it was in the belief that United were going to remain the dominant force in England and reclaim the European Cup.
Now they are facing a second potless season. If that is the case and little changes next season, Keane may wonder whether it is still worth him dragging his battered body through more games and bring forward his retirement. For today he will attempt to lift his beleaguered troops as he issued a rallying cry in a bid to keep up their bids for the Premiership and European Cup. They start again with the visit of Leeds to Old Trafford tomorrow. Keane said: "We are eight points behind Arsenal and there are a lot of good teams left in the European Cup so it's going to be a tough two or three months ahead of us. But we'll be ready for it. "We will have to see if we can hit back in Europe and the league. I want to talk in two or three months' time about us having one or two trophies but we like to do it the hard way. "We have to lick our wounds now because we have a big game on Wednesday and the players have to put the pressure on Arsenal. "But saying that, it doesn't take away from the disappointment for the players, management and staff from this final. It would have been nice to have got some silverware especially with it being against Liverpool." Keane has become used to having to make these speeches over the last couple of seasons. At worst, he has claimed United simply are not good enough and the team has come to the end of the line. That followed their elimination at the quarter-final stage of the Champions League in 2001. Since then there has been an investment of ?100 million on players and current stars have been signed up on mega-bucks long-term deals. United, however, have not moved on and arguably are not as good as they were four years ago. Keane will do all he can as captain to make sure the season ends in glory. If it doesn't he may soon decide he is wasting his breath. Subscription info WWW http://red11.org/list Reply to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] = subscribe to the list. [EMAIL PROTECTED] = unsubscribe from the list. Post message [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
