Keane admits to Cardiff's Chopra bid

Mar 23 2008 icWales

SUNDERLAND boss Roy Keane has admitted he rejected an approach from Dave Jones to take goal-hero Michael Chopra back to Cardiff and insisted the player “is going nowhere.”

Chopra completed a £5 million move from the Bluebirds to the Stadium Of Light last summer but he had failed to score from open play for seven months before his winner at Aston Villa on Saturday.

Cardiff manager Jones wanted to take the former Newcastle player back to the FA Cup semi-finalists to bolster their outside promotion hopes.

But Keane has knocked back their interest and believes Chopra can deliver goal-power for the Black Cats – if he is given the right sort of service.

Keane said: “How close was Chopra to going back to Cardiff? I can tell you it wasn’t speculation. I get phone calls about lots of my players – but Michael is going nowhere.

“I admire Dave Jones for chancing his arm. He fancied his chances of getting Michael back.

“There is nothing wrong with that. David got a very polite no from me – just like he was very helpful to me when I was trying to buy Chopra last summer.”

Chopra took advantage of hesitancy between Villa central defender Zat Knight and goalkeeper Scott Carson to grab his fourth goal of the campaign with seven minutes to go against Martin O’Neill’s side.

Apart from a penalty at Reading, it was his first goal since being on target in the 2-2 draw with Birmingham at St Andrews in the second game of the season.

It was a great response from Chopra after he was left out of the 16 beaten 1-0 at home by Chelsea the previous weekend.

“We know if we create chances, Michael will score,” Keane said.

“There is no doubt about that but obviously we’ve not been creating enough and in defence of him, I’ve been playing him out of position, wide right.

“Maybe the criticism against Michael has been slightly unfair but everyone, myself and the staff, are delighted with him.”

Chopra’s cool strike earned Sunderland their first away win of the season and lifted them four points clear of the bottom three.

Keane though is taking nothing for granted but believes Sunderland have been performing better than their record suggests.

He added: “It is easy to stay level headed. We’ve won one away game. If that is something to get carried away with, then we are all in trouble.

“We’ve got a decent group. It has been far from doom and gloom. I can tell you about seven or eight games where we’ve done enough to win the game but one mistake costs you and you don’t get over the finishing line.

“We felt the win was coming. I never go into a game fearful of what might be. I’ve got great belief in the players because we work with them every day.

“They are a good strong unit. There is no problem with the players and they are all focused.

“Remember, I left out three or four lads last week including Michael and they’ve all come back in and contributed.”

Villa boss O’Neill launched a strong defence of Carson who has looked hesitant and devoid of confidence since his costly error when on England duty against Croatia four months ago.

He said: “We had a couple of shaky moments. But the thing I want to encourage Scott to do is to keep coming out and not to be rooted to the line.

“If coming out and making a mistake or two, or not getting the correct punch, means over time he is going to be better at coming off his line, that is all to the good.

“Scott wasn’t the only one that made a few mistakes against Sunderland and it would be difficult to start singling anyone out.

“During the course of time, David James had a few anxious moments in his career and he has turned out to be a top quality goalkeeper.

“He always had the potential but now at the age he is, 37, he is fazed by a lot less than when he was Scott’s age.”

Villa have taken only two points from the last four games and O’Neill admitted: “I’ve been here 20 months and I think against Sunderland, considering what was at stake, would be as low a point as I’ve felt, honestly.

“There were a couple of low points last season when you were thinking ’where is the next point going to come from’ but we were trying to get a side together.”