Critics are so wrong about Keane - Sunderland legend Rowell

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The outspoken pundit was fiercely critical of his former friend over his treatment of Liam Miller, accusing him of transfer-listing the midfielder purely to enhance his own reputation as a hard manager.

Keane took the action last week, revealing that Miller had been late up to eight times for various training sessions.

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Yesterday Rowell gave Keane his support after Dunphy's latest outburst. "Roy Keane is totally bang on the money with his treatment of Liam Miller - and the more I hear about the case, the more I'm surprised that anyone disagrees with him," said Rowell.

"I heard Liam's agent defending him saying he'd only been late seven times. Seven times? I don't recall ever being late in my entire career and the fact is, it is one of the few iron rules there are for footballers: turn up on time.

"Anyone can be late and car accidents do happen. But it's not as though players are starting at 6am in the morning," added Rowell. "And if you turn up later, other than in exceptional circumstances, you are being unprofessional and unfair to your team-mates.

"I'm not being sycophantic to Roy Keane here either; it's just common sense. What happens if half-a-dozen players turn up late half-a-dozen times each? You can very quickly lose discipline in football and then you have chaos.

"It's not as if Liam wasn't warned and surely he must have realised how high an importance was placed on this subject when the manager left Marton Fulop, Toby Hysen and Anthony Stokes behind when they were late for the bus.

"Being on time is fundamental to football. Hopefully, Liam has learned his lesson. But one thing there should be no doubt about is that Keane sent out exactly the right message that you'd want coming from your football club."