ROY KEANE promised “brief relationships” with any Ipswich Town players unwilling to adhere to his new rules at Portman Road, just hours after his successor at Sunderland admitted that things have had to change since his departure.

Keane has been out of work since turning his back on the Stadium of Light in December, but took his first training session as Ipswich boss yesterday morning after signing a two-year deal at Portman Road.

His managerial comeback was always expected, but after being linked with Portsmouth and QPR, confirmation of his decision to take over the Tractor Boys late on Wednesday night stunned Wearside and the rest of the English game.

And now, in his own dominating style, he is expected to make ruthless decisions quickly at Ipswich, although he claimed yesterday that if “players are not late for training and train well” he will give every player a chance.

But in the latter stages of his managerial reign at Sunderland, his strong personality and hard-line approach are known to have contributed to a lack of respect for him from within the dressing room.

And boss Ricky Sbragia, who has stepped up from the coaching role he was handed under Keane, has admitted that he has had to tweak a number of things in an attempt to bring back the smile to a few of the players’ faces.

“I wanted to give a bit more democracy back to them,”

said Sbragia. “I’m a little bit different. I feel that players can self-govern in the dressing rooms. I can’t always be right. But if it’s going to affect the players I tend to talk to them about it, I tell them where I’m coming from and ask them for their thoughts.

“I do make the decisions, but after talking to them I’ll decide which way to go and I might consider something they say to me. It needed to change and that was the biggest change we made to what was happening previously.”

One of the biggest examples of the alterations made under Sbragia is a change to preparations for home matches, when Keane would usually insist on the team staying at Durham’s Ramside Hall Hotel on the eve of a game.

“I’ve changed a couple of things in training and I’ve also changed a couple of things regarding the hotel situation,” said Sbragia.

“We asked the players whether they would prefer to stay in their own bed or a hotel bed and the feedback was that they wanted to stay at home for home games.

“Manchester United go away at home, a lot of teams do, but I felt we were away too much in general. We gave them the choice and they all preferred to stay at home.

That saved us a few bob.”

Sbragia admitted that he would expect Keane to call over the course of the next few months in the hope of landing one or two of his old players, with Dean Whitehead, Daryl Murphy, David Healy and Nyron Nosworthy among the early candidates.

But regardless of what changes Sbragia felt was necessary following Keane’s departure, the Sunderland manager insists that the Corkman will bring immediate results and rewards to Ipswich.

“Just being Roy Keane was enough for him to get the players playing for him,” said Sbragia. “They will be hoping he has a similar effect on Ipswich.

The good thing about it is that he’s got a few games before the seasons ends, he’ll also have some money to spend.

“But the Championship is as tough as the Premier League and it’ll be difficult.

But I would think he’ll do extremely well.

“The game needs Roy Keane. He was desperate to get back in and I think Ipswich have made a great appointment.

He will look at his mistakes, look at his good points, but I think in general you need luck.

“He’ll go in there and make everybody what he wants to make them, but he’ll make them winners too. That’s the biggest thing. That will happen.

His demands are great and they’re supposed to be great. The players there will have to decide whether they want to buy into it or not.”

Sbragia, though, also has his own problems and targets at Sunderland to worry about ahead of tomorrow’s trip to West Brom, where a victory would almost certainly secure the Black Cats’ place in the Premier League.

But he has learned that defender Nosworthy will not figure again this season, after pulling his hamstring for a third time in the reserves’ 3- 1 win at Derby.

He limped off after 53 minutes at Pride Park, when Sunderland followed up their reserves league triumph by lifting the Reserve League Cup to claim a double.

■ Sunderland are set to reveal their new home strip next week on the club’s website, www.safc.com. The new kit will be revealed online gradually over a number of days starting Monday. It will be released on sale on May 20 prior to the final home match of the season against Chelsea, but it can be pre-ordered from Monday.