ROY Keane today looked ahead to the summer months and said: “There will be no mass invasion of players to Portman Road.”

Elvin King

ROY Keane today looked ahead to the summer months and said: “There will be no mass invasion of players to Portman Road.”

Although too worldly wise to expect every game to go as smoothly as Saturday's 3-0 Coca-Cola Championship victory over Cardiff City at Ninian Park, new Ipswich Town manager Keane saw enough in his first game in charge to give his current squad a vote of confidence.

“There will not be the wheeling and dealing like there was when I was in charge at Sunderland,” added Keane.

“Credit to the players. I was delighted and they are a great bunch.”

And Keane had special praise for his former Sunderland player Stead, who stepped off the bench, scored a goal and engineered others for Pablo Counago and David Norris.

“People will say I sold him before but at that time we were near the bottom of the Championship and he went into the Premier League with Sheffield United,” said Keane.

“I couldn't stand in the lad's way.

“He is a bit older now and hopefully he has found his right club. I had no defenders on the bench, so brought Jon on when Alex Bruce was injured.

“You want your substitutes to be ready to make a difference and not just day dream on the bench. I'm very happy to have Jon here.”

And Keane also picked out Matt Richards, who made a fairytale return after being in the wilderness for two years.

“He trained well for a couple of days and Matt had a good game - he showed up well.“