Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn says Roy Keane came at the right time for the club.
"Roy suited the job perfectly for that part of the journey," Quinn told The Times. "We'd have loved him to have gone on a bit longer but Roy raised aspirations here for everybody.
"There's a brilliant spike to Roy which may frighten some people but to me is his greatest strength. He's this bulldozer and I had to keep up, keep moving things out of his way. And even though it's finished, even though the chain came off, I still feel I have to keep on my toes like I did with him.
"There's things here that wouldn't, couldn't have happened without Roy. When he came we'd only sold 15 executive boxes with 53 still to renew. So we invited 100 ex-box holders to a dinner and, I swear, Roy turned up at 8 o'clock and he's with the last group standing there just before midnight pointing them in the chest saying 'get the box'. The cheques arrived the next morning.
"Some would say they were scared. I would say intrigued. The only way we sold them was Roy. I'd have loved to have played a European game under him just to really mark the journey."
