Roy Keane is not the type to be overly impressed by self-styled "Special Ones" and he departed underwhelmed after checking out Jose Mourinho and his Chelsea team on Sunday.

With Keane's Sunderland side on the verge of promotion, the Corkman dropped in at Old Trafford to watch Chelsea beat Blackburn Rovers in the FA Cup semi-final but departed unconvinced by Mourinho's team, claiming to have seen nothing to daunt his Wearside squad who limbered up for their final push towards the Premiership with a day's mountain biking on Tuesday.

"I went to watch Chelsea, see what they were about, see their manager and just try to pick up different things," Keane said yesterday. "I left before extra-time but, overall, I was disappointed with the game. I thought it was poor.

"I think we would have taken either of them on the weekend's performance. It was like when I watched Middlesbrough versus West Brom in the Cup a few weeks ago and, when people asked me what I thought, I said, 'We'd take any of them.'"

Keane, though, is the sort of man who not only believes mountains are there to be climbed but repeatedly asks his players to prove it. Indeed it is probably a good thing Sunderland's insurers were not around to watch his squad racing across Swaledale and some of the rockiest fellsides in northern England.

There is clearly a frustrated outward-bound instructor lurking within Keane, who has recently asked his players to undertake a series of increasingly adventurous challenges, including white-water rafting. "There's some rough terrain out there so, yes, you do think about what might happen if one falls off but, thank God, they all got through, nobody got injured. The goalkeeping coach getting a puncture was the one real incident," he said with a smile.

"We've got to be careful about the danger side of things and the insurance but we've got a few more things like this planned. You can't just put footballers on the golf course all the time; we like to keep testing them and challenging them in different environments."

Such "mental freshening", as Keane describes it, is something he learnt from Brian Clough, whom he later described as a genius. "I used to do stuff a bit like this at Forest.

"I gave the lads a challenge yesterday and it was a very difficult challenge - four hours on a mountain bike is not easy," the Sunderland manager said. "We were in four teams of 10 and every team wanted to win."

Rather more importantly, Keane was able to assess how individuals adjusted to being removed from cosily familiar habitats. "I find out who the leaders are, who likes to be in control, who the real winners are," he said. "The lads are comfortable with a football at their feet but throw them on a mountain bike or into a white-water raft and you see another side of them, some good, some maybe not so good. We like to keep them guessing and give them surprises. Yesterday, for instance, they only knew we were going to Swaledale two minutes before we left.

"You'd be surprised who comes to the fore, there were one or two I thought wouldn't enjoy it but did. And it means they look forward to getting back training here and getting a feel for the ball again."

In Keane-speak that means passing it properly. "I've got certain beliefs of the way the game should be played and that's what we try to do in training every day, pass the ball and move it," he explained. "Mental toughness is the most important thing but you've got to be able to pass the ball, if you can't pass you've got no chance."

Once again a certain former Sunderland striker would certainly approve. "I was very lucky to play under Brian Clough," Keane added. "He kept things very simple and he was a genius with it."

Guardian Service