For all managers, there are scales of defeat, and no matter how damaging losing matches may be, losing face can be as corrosive. This has been the stark dilemma confronting Sunderland this week, where Roy Keane’s appetite for the challenge on Wearside has been less important than his willingness or ability to adapt. Clarity, of a sort, should come today.

Given Keane’s involvement, Niall Quinn’s “magic carpet ride” was always likely to meet some turbulence, but how to explain the uncertainty that has suddenly engulfed a transformed club with refreshed ambitions? Apart from their poor run of form and tumble into the relegation zone, where has it come from and what are the reasons?

Where do we stand?

Teetering on a precipice. As of last night, Keane remained in his position, but the austerity of that statement reflects how steeply things have slumped. It is also the reality. The past few days have been spent taking stock, in the dressing-room and boardroom; difficult questions have been posed. Keane is not the only man to ask whether he is the best person for the job and the answer is yet to be heard.

With the adverse weather affecting Sunderland’s training pitches, Keane is due to hold his regular media briefing at 1pm today. If he appears, it can be assumed that he will lead his team to Old Trafford on Saturday, when spirit will be measured before pivotal matches against West Bromwich Albion, Hull City and Blackburn Rovers. Quinn returned yesterday from a break in Portugal.

How have Sunderland reached this point?

Just as with any other business or organisation, clubs are defined by their relationships as much as by their results or resources and in this regard, Sunderland’s decline has been sharp. Working with a personality as volatile and unpredictable as Keane’s can never be straightforward — and has not been — but it is under rather than above him where connections have splintered most tellingly.

Keane has made great play of his tutelage under Sir Alex Ferguson and Brian Clough, but having assumed a persona based on unflinching standards, there has been little warmth to balance it. As Keane acknowledged in his autobiography: “For all his success, Clough could be touchingly human, which is not too frequently the case with living legends.”

Has that been a lesson learnt or a lesson spurned? The evidence, at this stage, suggests the latter, with six defeats in seven matches and four in succession at the Stadium of Light pointing to discord and seeping confidence. There is more to motivation than a demanding attitude and flashes of anger, but do Keane’s players ever see a glimpse of his engaging, humorous side?

Hasn’t Keane always been like that?

There have been bonding sessions at assault courses and go-kart tracks — and the initial responses were wholly positive — but the dynamics within the squad have changed. Keane conceded that he had taken a calculated gamble by signing some prickly characters this summer, but it is yet to succeed. He could mould and manipulate a young, inexperienced squad, but the knack has disappeared.

Keane famously won an early battle by dropping three players for their errant timekeeping before a match away to Barnsley last year, but disciplinary disputes with Pascal Chimbonda, for example, were as predictable as they were therefore avoidable. Andy Reid has been underused and Martyn Waghorn, 18, started away to Chelsea, ahead of Djibril Cissé and El-Hadji Diouf, before being dispatched on loan to Charlton Athletic.

Dropping Anton Ferdinand for Saturday’s defeat by Bolton Wanderers (he was unhappy that the defender had made a routine television appearance before the game against West Ham United, his former club) was nonsensical in football terms. A vast, bloated squad has proved unwieldy and dangerous, with too many players encouraging discontent.

His fury at half-time of the Carling Cup tie against Northampton Town in September, which Sunderland won on penalties, was intense and unchecked, since when they have beaten only Newcastle United and Blackburn. Few players are as driven as him. Some require love, understanding, faith, an arm around the shoulder rather than verbal assault. He has been slow to compromise; can he?

Does Keane still have the support of his board?

To turn that question on its head, Keane has only ever had the support of his board. He has been given everything he asked for, been permitted to build the club in his own image without interference and every foible indulged. In return he has, to use Quinn’s parlance, been “box office,” but he is not bigger than Sunderland and patience is not unlimited.

Leadership of the club has shifted away from the Irish-based Drumaville Consortium towards Ellis Short, the American businessman who is the leading shareholder and benefactor. Yesterday, Sunderland appointed Steve Walton, a corporate director for Barclays, the new chief executive.

Keane’s reluctance to extend the contract that expires at the end of the season has infiltrated the mood at Sunderland. A tactic he used as a player is inappropriate for management, encouraging instability. Players and officials, and potential signings, need to envisage a stable future.

What happens next?

If Keane agrees to soften his sharper edges, rapprochement is possible, but no Sunderland fan should doubt the severity of the present position. Should Keane request it, he will be given time.

Referring to Nottingham Forest’s relegation under Clough in 1993, Keane wrote: “As always in dressing-rooms, the last thing people did was look at themselves and accept responsibility for their own failings.” Now it is his turn.