ROY Keane believes footballers today don’t have the same “values” as when he was a player.

The former Ipswich Town manager admitted he had some difficult dealing with the changing attitudes and that he witnessed players who were “not prepared to roll their sleeves up”.

While not naming names, it seems likely that Keane was referring to his time in Suffolk as well as Sunderland in the interview with the League Managers Association.

But the ex-Blues boss insists he is ready to return to the hot-seat, saying: “It has been eight or nine months since I left Ipswich, and its gone pretty quickly.

“Now I have to say, that if the right challenge came around the corner I would take it.

“I have enjoyed my time off and when you have been in the game with the kind of intensity I have done for the past 20 years, you do need time to re charge your batteries and step back. But now if the right challenge comes up, I’ll be ready for it.”

Keane, who was sacked by Ipswich in January following a disappointing 20-month spell at Portman Road, has seen noticeable differences between when he led the Manchester United midfield and when he stepped into management.

“As a player I led by example, and that came easy to me, I wouldn’t ask any player to do anything I wouldn’t do,” said Keane, who was linked with the vacancy at former club Nottingham Forest before Steve Cotterill got the job.

“It’s not so easy as a manager. Management is different. You have to have the staff you can trust, and so on, but you also want certain values from your players.

“Unfortunately players don’t have the same values they used to, and this is something I have noticed changing over the past 20 years.

“That makes it very hard for a manager to manage. You can put up with mistakes, whether they are on the field or even off it, but you cannot understand, you cannot get your head around players who come into work and are not prepared to roll their sleeves up.”