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Keane’s cutting comments
After he was sent off for stamping on Gareth Southgate in 1995, Keane said: “He shouldn’t be lying on the floor. Defenders shouldn’t be on their backsides. I felt that he got in the way.”
Keane on the Old Trafford crowd in 2000: “Sometimes you wonder, do they understand the game of football? We’re 1-0 up, then there are one or two stray passes and they’re getting on players’ backs. It’s just not on. At the end of the day they need to get behind the team. Away from home our fans are fantastic – I’d call them the hardcore fans. But at home they have a few drinks and probably the prawn sandwiches, and they don’t realise what’s going on out on the pitch. I don’t think some of the people who come to Old Trafford can spell football, never mind understand it.”
Keane’s problems with the Football Association of Ireland started in 2001: “I am not pointing the finger at anybody, but if there was anything to make me say ‘I am going to spend the week with my wife and kids at home’ that would be it. Where we trained in Clonshaugh was abysmal and it has been for as long as I’ve known it. I was fairly critical of the seating arrangements for the flight over here when the officials were at the front and the players behind.”
In 2001 Keane revealed he did not think his United team-mates at the time contributed to a great side: “The great teams get back to finals and win it, and this just shows we are not a great team. We’re just an average team in a lot of areas, but it’s up to the manager and the rest of the staff to look at that. We seem to be falling further behind these teams like Real Madrid.”
On his horrific lunge at Alf-Inge Haaland, Keane said: “Even in the dressing room afterwards I had no remorse. My attitude was: ’What goes around comes around’. He got his just rewards. My attitude is an eye for an eye.”
In 2003 he discussed management: “I’ve been fortunate to work under two of the game’s great managers, in Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson, and the thought of being manager of Manchester United would be fantastic.”
He had a confrontation with Senegal-born France international Patrick Vieira before the clash with Arsenal in 2005, and he was reported to say afterwards: “It makes me laugh, players going on about how they are saving this country and saving that country but when they have the opportunity to play – well, it’s probably none of my business.”
United finished the 2005 season without a trophy, and Keane said: “Results don’t lie and the table doesn’t lie. Our performance levels have not been good enough. Everyone at this club needs to look at themselves and ask whether they are giving 100% to the football club.”