Sir Bobby Robson has offered his advice to new Ipswich Town boss Roy Keane.

Keane kicked off his career at Portman Road with victory against Cardiff City and Sir Bobby, in his column for the Mail on Sunday, wrote: "As the honorary club president of Ipswich Town, a club I still love dearly (there is a statue of a young me outside the stadium!), I want him to excel at Portman Road.

"The first thing to understand is that to be successful in Suffolk, he must live in Suffolk. Not just him, but his family as well.

"Regular readers know I do not think you can be successful at a club if you are not physically there. It did not work for Graeme Souness or Dennis Wise at Newcastle and, if truth be told, it quite definitely did not work for Roy at Sunderland, either."

Robson also said: "The second area where Roy will hopefully have learned from his Sunderland experience is in signing players. I am not questioning Roy's ability to judge a player, he has enough experience at the top levels of the game.

"But I do not think he did his homework sufficiently when bringing in new players and it came back to bite him. You do not buy someone on the strength of a video or a scouting report, or seeing him once yourself.

"I think Roy does know what makes a good player, but he has to do the hard yards as a manager, just as he did as a player. There is also the question of Roy's personality.

"I have heard from the people at Sunderland that Roy could be hard work. Nobody minds the manager challenging the board or the players at times, but on other occasions he has to step back and accept losing the odd battle in order to win the war."