Steven Reid: I had a Snoop around Roy and lived to tell the tale

Mid-morning in Cheshire and the man walking towards me has a familiar look. As he moves closer, striding down the narrow path which is flanked on either side by tall, overhanging trees, I can see it is Roy.

"How's it going, Reidy?" he says, snapping his fingers, immediately to bring his two Alsatians to heel.

He's in a friendly mood but not half as friendly as my dog, Snoop, who is blissfully unaware of the man's reputation, jumping right up onto his thighs, then his chest, getting paw-marks all over his neatly-ironed diadora sweatshirt.

We talk dogs briefly and then about my knee. I've done my cruciate, the same injury he once had and on this day, I'm not in the best of form. My career is at a crossroads. I suppose Roy is in a similar place, having just left his first managerial job at Sunderland.

Still, his mood is brighter than mine. Perhaps he senses this as the conversation moves from rehab on a knee to coaching courses. He is probably giving me some top-notch advice but most of it, though, goes way over my head.

I'm in a panic. Snoop - a four-year-old - sees Roy and his nice clean clothes as fair game. Up he jumps. Tongue out. If it isn't muddy paw-marks decorating Roy's clothes, it is Snoop's drool.

"Sorry about that Roy," I say. Inside, I am saying, "F*** me, Snoop, you're going to get a two-footed challenge in the head here if you don't stop."

Laughs

And Roy just laughs it off. I thought about that incident this week as the snippets came out around his book launch and as he spoke about how a lot of his reputation was misrepresentative, how he suffered a bit of self-doubt from time to time and how the raving lunatic image people had of him, was wide of the mark.

He isn't a man I know well. But that reputation was at the forefront of my mind when I first broke into the Ireland squad as a League One player back in 2001. I was young, on not much more than a £1,000-a-week, and still living with my mum.

He was Roy Keane, the Manchester United captain, the player who had just gone to war with the biggest club in the world over his wages, saying he was prepared to leave if they didn't pay him £50,000 a week. And United blinked first.

I was in awe of him. And there was no arm-around-the-shoulder welcome. No 'you're the new boy here, let me make you feel at home'. The first ball he got at training, he pinged it at me. Hard as anything.

He never spoke a word but that pass said everything. The message was clear: "You've arrived now. Step up to the plate."

I wanted to impress him. It was like that when I was at Blackburn with Craig Bellamy and Tuguy as well. They trained hard. Every day. Session after session. They were top professionals and I wanted them, and Roy, to hold me in some sort of regard.

Snoop, meanwhile, couldn't have cared less about what Roy thought of him. His clothes were there to attack and up he went, embarrassing the life out of me, and as I failed to control my dog, Roy's two Alsations sat there obediently, knowing full well who the boss was.

The players in the Ireland camp this week will have a similar mindset. There is a line. Martin O'Neill and Roy are in charge. The players will stand to attention and do what they'll say.

Make no mistake, they'll have loved the craic from the book. He's an interesting man, after all, a guy who not just has plenty to say but who is real honest.

So rather than prove a distraction from the match, the furore surrounding the book will be a godsend to O'Neill. The players will have loved the banter. Boredom, which can be an issue, will not be there.

And if anyone thinks this is a distraction, then let me take you back 12 years to a place called Saipan before a tournament called the World Cup.

One of the best players in the world then had a row with our manager. I sat there, the youngest player in the group, and saw it all kick off. Now that's a distraction.

And yet, footballers being footballers, we moved on. We had a squad full of captains, senior players who had been there and seen it all. We got on really well as a group, enjoyed socialising with one another, enjoyed a sing-song, a night out. We mixed together and knew we had to move on from the incident.

From a distance, that may sound cold but it had to be that way. We were in a World Cup and wanted to perform. We didn't want to be like an England team and go to the finals with fear. We weren't scared. We wanted to achieve.

So we moved on. The distraction ceased to be a distraction.

Of course it was far from ideal. As a young player, I was thinking, 'we've lost our main man here'. It should have had a negative impact. But it didn't.

Closer

We got closer together as a group and got on with things, playing well in that tournament, being unfortunate to get knocked out on penalties by Spain.

So trust me, this group of Irish players will not be sidetracked by Roy Keane bringing out a book this week. They'll think about their own game.

And they'll think about Gibraltar and know they will win tonight. They will talk about being patient in terms of their mentality and from a tactical point of view, they will refer to the endless training drills where teams 'try to beat the block'.

They'll know that any side can get organised and position nine defenders right across their penalty area and just work on frustrating the opposition.

And they will know what it takes to break them down, namely some quick play, some sharp movement and some sharper thought.

They will know that possession for possession's sake is silly and they will try to mix up their tactics, seeking to get the game-changers, Aiden McGeady and Robbie Keane, onto the ball, knowing that players have to make runs in behind their defence, knowing that there has to be plenty of movement.

And deep down they will also know that it is a bit of a shambles that Gibraltar are playing international football and that they should be beaten by five or six goals. I expect they will be.