RICKY SBRAGIA is fed up with Roy Keane’s intermittent swipes and has accused the former Sunderland manager of refusing to move on following his Stadium of Light exit six months ago.

Keane left the Wearside club in December and, after a brief period of silence, he has often described how the rising interference from the club’s largest shareholder, American Ellis Short, was a major reason why he quit.

But in the last eight days, following his return to management at Ipswich Town, the Irishman has started to make his criticism more personal.

And as well as claiming that midfielder Andy Reid – a player he signed for £3m from Charlton 15 months ago – lacked fitness, Keane has also this week suggested that the Sunderland squad lack a winning mentality and a mental toughness.

Sbragia, however, has had enough. And the coach who was attracted to Sunderland by the former Manchester United captain feels that it is time for Keane to stop seeking media attention and shut up.

“It just seems that if he wants a bit of publicity, he says something. Why doesn’t he talk about Ipswich? Why is he always talking about Sunderland.

That’s what I don’t understand,” said Sbragia.

“Why did he leave Sunderland?

Why do I think he left Sunderland? He’ll know that.

He knows the exact reason he left Sunderland. I wouldn’t want to go into print and say exactly what I know about what he said and what he did.

I won’t go into that. But I don’t know why he keeps talking about Sunderland. He has left Sunderland. I could go into more detail, but I won’t go into more detail. I know exactly why he left.

“If he wants to do that, then he does it. I can’t stop him.

That’s up to him. But I don’t go and talk about any other clubs and say that Man United are going through a really bad season or stuff like that.

Or that Arsenal are crap and are not showing any bollocks.

I wouldn’t say anything like that, it wouldn’t be true.

“But I don’t think you should say stuff about other clubs. I think he should just really concentrate on Ipswich.

He’s back in football. He should enjoy it.”

And Sbragia does not think that Keane is in a strong enough position to criticise the Sunderland squad, when it was actually the Corkman who was responsible for spending more than £80m during his two-and-a-half years in charge.

“Roy Keane has left the club and that’s it as far as I’m concerned.

It’s up to Roy what he wants to do. If he wants a bit of publicity he says something,”

said Sbragia.

“I don’t have a problem with the winning mentality of my squad. The majority of them he brought in anyway, so he would know more about that side. He talks about mental toughness but he brought the players in, didn’t he?

“He’s not here, we don’t talk about him. We don’t discuss him. But for some reason he keeps coming back. I don’t know why. Maybe he still thinks he’s the manager. I don’t know. Maybe. I don’t know why. Maybe he’s just bored and has nothing to do, so he thinks ‘I’ll have a go at Sunderland!’”

But while Sbragia aired the anger he feels towards Keane, the current Sunderland manager did accept that his players failed to “turn up” for last weekend’s defeat at West Brom.

A victory at The Hawthorns would almost certainly have kept Sunderland in the Premier League, but now there remains just four points between them and the relegation zone ahead of tomorrow’s visit of David Moyes’ Everton.

After Sunderland’s fall down the table in recent months, Sbragia’s determination to see out the remaining season on his 18-month contract has been questioned.

He does, however, insist that he will be around for as long as Short and chairman Niall Quinn want him to be.

He said: “I’m here. I’m here for as long as they want me to be here. I’m planning for the future. There’s not been any discussion about my position at all. I speak to Niall. I speak to him often, I will do this afternoon.

It’s just a case of having to get over that line.”

And he insists that his own ambitions for Sunderland remain the same as Quinn’s - high.

“It would be terrible to let the efforts of everyone at the club over the last three years go to waste,” said Sbragia.

“In general we thought we might have been slightly higher up, to be truthful. On the ambition side, we would probably be in the top ten. I’m not saying that was the target, but that was the thought. We wanted to kick on when I took over, but since then we’ve not done particularly well, to be honest.

“We know the importance of this one on Sunday. We know some teams are playing on Saturday and we hope those results go our way, but we have to get our own points.

It would be nice to have 38 points on board by Sunday evening.”