Roy Keane

Keane has always had incredibly high standards, especially when it comes to what he perceives as ‘effort’- it’s what made him a great player but also not the best of managers. I think most of our fans have had their expectations and standards slowly eroded over the past 11 years, whereas for him he expects every United team to atleast put in the same effort he did, regardless of quality. I do think sometimes he struggles to realise that our players are just a bit shite.

I mean it’s been painful for fans to watch United play in recent years, imagine what it must be like for him turning up watching these jokers representing the same club he did. If anything I feel his rants have lost a lot of passion recently
 
The Mitcher said:
How was Moyes thrown under the bus by a totally different team? LVG never lost the dressing room and was sacked by the board, he also had a different team. Mourinho lost it because he's toxic, he deserved to be sacked and had a different team. Ole didn't either, oh and had a different team. Rangnick attacked the players publicly to save his own skin and still survived his interim. ETH also never lost the players no matter how many times he set them up to fail.

This narrative needs to die. The players are are currently coming off a 19 month spell of bad form, and this will take time to sort out the mess that ETH created. They showed graft and tried tonight, you should be backing them. Instead you fall for the cult of the manager and shit on them.
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I thought that once again, Chelsea looked more up for it than we did. Not by that much of a margin as in other games, I'll give them that but it was still a discrepancy there. Lets just not advise others how to support their team - do whatever you think whats fair and let others do the same.
 
Irish Bhoy said:
These United players have been throwing managers under the bus for years now.
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Only 7 of the current players have been in the first-team squad for longer than three seasons, and only 3 of those regularly play in the matchday team. The vast majority of the players have only known one manager at Utd so to say they have been throwing managers under the bus for years just isn't true. It is ten Hag's team, so any issues with quality, tactics, attitude, whatever are all on him.
 
Keane, like Souness come from a British football culture that saw the game as a series of duels between players. They talk fondly about how it was all about characters, dressing rooms and solving problems on the pitch. Tactics and coaching were basic as they like to tell us over and over again. If that's what you are used to and how you see the game, any performance shortcomings have to come by definition from lack of trying, intelligence, quality, etc... It is this mindset that made them incapable of cutting it at the highest level as managers. Souness experienced limited success in the '90s when football in England at least was still played very much in that aforementioned British tradition but after that, when other coaches and clubs started looking to gain marginal advantages with higher tactical discipline and micro coaching, their approach became naturally lacking. Keane will always be loved by us United fans, we will probably never see a captain like him and he was clearly one of the best midfielders of his generation, but as a pundit, he really doesn't offer anything other than validate disgruntled fans by taking the facile route of blame and moaning about how it was different back in his day.
 
Keane is spot on. There's several seasons of results to back him up. The massive inconsistency in players performances, the throwing away of leads, being run off the pitch by mid table sides etc...
 
Theonas said:
Keane, like Souness come from a British football culture that saw the game as a series of duels between players. They talk fondly about how it was all about characters, dressing rooms and solving problems on the pitch. Tactics and coaching were basic as they like to tell us over and over again. If that's what you are used to and how you see the game, any performance shortcomings have to come by definition from lack of trying, intelligence, quality, etc... It is this mindset that made them incapable of cutting it at the highest level as managers. Souness experienced limited success in the '90s when football in England at least was still played very much in that aforementioned British tradition but after that, when other coaches and clubs started looking to gain marginal advantages with higher tactical discipline and micro coaching, their approach became naturally lacking. Keane will always be loved by us United fans, we will probably never see a captain like him and he was clearly one of the best midfielders of his generation, but as a pundit, he really doesn't offer anything other than validate disgruntled fans by taking the facile route of blame and moaning about how it was different back in his day.
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As a pundit he offers plenty. Including no nonsense criticism and very evident respect from all his fellow pundits.

If there’s one player I’d want in this team, it’s Keane. And if there’s one pundit I’d want our team to listen to, it’s Keane.
 
cpresc said:
As a pundit he offers plenty. Including no nonsense criticism and very evident respect from all his fellow pundits.

If there’s one player I’d want in this team, it’s Keane. And if there’s one pundit I’d want our team to listen to, it’s Keane.
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I don't see any value from a pundit when they say what your average fan vents about on any social media platform. I also don't see the value when the verdict or analysis is more or less always the same. As I said, I can see it serves to validate and confirm fans' anger, a bit like a populist politician who uses their audience frustration to ride on the wave of "he is just like us and understands us" nonsense... except that those guys are usually manipulative and very savvy, in Keane's case, he is simply just too emotional to offer any nuanced insight, when it comes to football at least as he comes across as a reflective and intelligent man when he talks about other subjects.

As for wanting him as a player, I'd also want Maradona and Ronaldinho in my football team, that doesn't make their opinions why a team is not working that useful. It's two different skillsets.
 
It’s always a shame when the panel descends into…these bunch of players are shit and boring.

Equally it’s a missed opportunity for the likes of Keano and Lampard not to even try and articulate what it’s like as a manager, with both having failed miserable at the task.

United and Chelsea are not full of world class players like the ones they were extremely lucky to play in.

Punditry could be so much better, but I understand Keane has a pantomime character to play.
 
Adisa said:
There is no way these all these players give everything, especially when we don’t have the ball. Just look at how many times we are outworked by weaker teams. Compare how slow we are to press with other teams. Look at how many late goals we concede.
There’s a deep culture problem with players at this club. These players don’t hold each other accountable.
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I am referring to this game.
 
The Mitcher said:
How was Moyes thrown under the bus by a totally different team? LVG never lost the dressing room and was sacked by the board, he also had a different team. Mourinho lost it because he's toxic, he deserved to be sacked and had a different team. Ole didn't either, oh and had a different team. Rangnick attacked the players publicly to save his own skin and still survived his interim. ETH also never lost the players no matter how many times he set them up to fail.

This narrative needs to die. The players are are currently coming off a 19 month spell of bad form, and this will take time to sort out the mess that ETH created. They showed graft and tried tonight, you should be backing them. Instead you fall for the cult of the manager and shit on them.
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Why does the squad changing personnel mean that the general point about players disliking the manager(s) can't be true?
  • Moyes never had the dressing room. They've all basically admitted as much.
  • van Gaal also absolutely lost (at least sections of) the dressing room. His extremely rigid philosophy was very unpopular with a number of his players (generally the attacking ones) and a few have gone on record saying so.
  • You've literally just acknowledged that Mourinho and Rangnick did (regardless of the reasons).
  • Ole and Ten Hag, maybe not, but that's still four from six that have lost dressing rooms.
I also don't think we looked particularly up for it tonight. Certainly not noticeably more than Chelsea, who didn't really look that up for it themselves. It was a really poor game of football.
 
Superden said:
Keane is spot on. There's several seasons of results to back him up. The massive inconsistency in players performances, the throwing away of leads, being run off the pitch by mid table sides etc...
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Keane's been consistent in his criticisms of this United team over the years, and they have literally not been able to make him eat his words. So ultimately the root cause of our issues is average quality players, with poor attitude just a secondary probably that might not always present itself. The table doesn't lie, and look at these players with their national teams (if they get picked) or at the clubs they leave United for. They're dross in 99% of cases.
 
Theonas said:
I don't see any value from a pundit when they say what your average fan vents about on any social media platform. I also don't see the value when the verdict or analysis is more or less always the same. As I said, I can see it serves to validate and confirm fans' anger, a bit like a populist politician who uses their audience frustration to ride on the wave of "he is just like us and understands us" nonsense... except that those guys are usually manipulative and very savvy, in Keane's case, he is simply just too emotional to offer any nuanced insight, when it comes to football at least as he comes across as a reflective and intelligent man when he talks about other subjects.

As for wanting him as a player, I'd also want Maradona and Ronaldinho in my football team, that doesn't make their opinions why a team is not working that useful. It's two different skillsets.
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A populist politician sits in the beige middle, in search of being liked by the majority. Yet Keane has always nailed his colours to the discipline and determination mast, has lived through and taken scars from those principles while consistently giving zero Fs about what people think about him.

I’ll take strong opinion and passion from a pundit over data driven wokery every day of the week.

But each to their own
 
Just can’t take what he says too seriously ….entertainer.

Absolute legend though.
 
Theonas said:
Keane, like Souness come from a British football culture that saw the game as a series of duels between players. They talk fondly about how it was all about characters, dressing rooms and solving problems on the pitch. Tactics and coaching were basic as they like to tell us over and over again. If that's what you are used to and how you see the game, any performance shortcomings have to come by definition from lack of trying, intelligence, quality, etc... It is this mindset that made them incapable of cutting it at the highest level as managers. Souness experienced limited success in the '90s when football in England at least was still played very much in that aforementioned British tradition but after that, when other coaches and clubs started looking to gain marginal advantages with higher tactical discipline and micro coaching, their approach became naturally lacking. Keane will always be loved by us United fans, we will probably never see a captain like him and he was clearly one of the best midfielders of his generation, but as a pundit, he really doesn't offer anything other than validate disgruntled fans by taking the facile route of blame and moaning about how it was different back in his day.
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are you saying marginal advantages werent a thing until after the 90s? cmon, there were entire universities dedicated to juicing up athletes of all persuasions from the 50s onwards, on both sides of the iron curtain. most elite football teams in the 70s and 80s, even in britain, had players that were up to their eyeballs in cocktails of amphetamines and opioids etc. and in terms of tactics, they existed before the advent of the premier league. all this doesnt negate Keanes point though, that you can have whatever ability, relationship with the staff etc, if players arent prepared to put a shift in, more often than not that is the biggest predictor of a neagtive outcome.
 
Keano has his moments but he's made his name as a pundit by being negative for the sake of being negative, especially when it comes to United. We had been in horror form, which is why we sacked the manager, and faced a Chel,sea side enjoying a great season so far yet we held them at bay for most of the game shut down Cole Palmer. Meanwhile, we created enough chances to have scored on a few of them but of course didn't.

All I heard from the legend was vanilla negativity, how United just aren't good enough -- which isn't really news or insightful -- and no tactical analysis of what went right and wrong for us. Just more bla bla bla from a man who seems to take delight in the fact that this United side is nowhere near the sides that won PL trophies during his tenure, which isn't really news or insightful stuff.
 
lex talionis said:
Keano has his moments but he's made his name as a pundit by being negative for the sake of being negative, especially when it comes to United. We had been in horror form, which is why we sacked the manager, and faced a Chel,sea side enjoying a great season so far yet we held them at bay for most of the game shut down Cole Palmer. Meanwhile, we created enough chances to have scored on a few of them but of course didn't.

All I heard from the legend was vanilla negativity, how United just aren't good enough -- which isn't really news or insightful -- and no tactical analysis of what went right and wrong for us. Just more bla bla bla from a man who seems to take delight in the fact that this United side is nowhere near the sides that won PL trophies during his tenure, which isn't really news or insightful stuff.
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He said he gave up on them a few weeks back when Eriksson said 'they wanted it more than us'.
 
3KDré said:
I don't know why people get so hung up on his words to be honest. It's very obvious he, like most pundits, don't really watch football outside of work or read into it. When you don't know what you're talking about you revert back to clichés. You can see with Lampard talking about 'these players over the last two years' when the reality is most of the players from 2 years ago aren't here any more.

There actually are players in the squad now who have this 'United DNA' he's referring to. De Ligt, Onana, Martinez, Dalot, Mazraoui, Casemiro, Bruno, Eriksen. All of them, bar Dalot and Bruno have won league titles. Each of them would have fit right into our squad under Fergie (mentality wise, not ability).
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Yes, I think Fergie would love to have some of these players in his squad. Brushing them off as "all these players" is just a lazy comment without much thinking.

Just imagine you have manager like this. After every defeat, he's just making this lazy observation, brushing all players as shit with soft mentality. None about what things they're doing good, what to learn, and where to improve.
 
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He has a point about team effort... look at the Ugarte (Rashford) & Casemiro (Garnacho) bookings. Both forwards showed no effort on the defensive part of the game and caused the CM's to both pick up bookings. That should not happen.
 
Keans comments are always the same and aimed to push on the narrative that its is only due to the players effort that matches are won. Maybe he thinks that one day fans will forget the importance of Sir Alex in delivering success to the club and his (Keane's) failure as a manager
 
clarkydaz said:
He said he gave up on them a few weeks back when Eriksson said 'they wanted it more than us'.
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If Keano has given up on United I can't see much value in anything he has to say now or in the future. We're all frustrated with what has transpired over the last decade, but we need to keep that context in mind when evaluating performances on a match to match basis. Given what the squad is and what it's gone through over the last two seasons there were important observations to share, both negative and positive but always productive, rather than being a negative nabob with nothing useful to say.
 
Theonas said:
Keane, like Souness come from a British football culture that saw the game as a series of duels between players. They talk fondly about how it was all about characters, dressing rooms and solving problems on the pitch. Tactics and coaching were basic as they like to tell us over and over again. If that's what you are used to and how you see the game, any performance shortcomings have to come by definition from lack of trying, intelligence, quality, etc... It is this mindset that made them incapable of cutting it at the highest level as managers. Souness experienced limited success in the '90s when football in England at least was still played very much in that aforementioned British tradition but after that, when other coaches and clubs started looking to gain marginal advantages with higher tactical discipline and micro coaching, their approach became naturally lacking. Keane will always be loved by us United fans, we will probably never see a captain like him and he was clearly one of the best midfielders of his generation, but as a pundit, he really doesn't offer anything other than validate disgruntled fans by taking the facile route of blame and moaning about how it was different back in his day.
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I feel like people have been hoodwinked a bit by modern football and the idea of managers being some tactical puppeteer that outwits their counterpart with intricate formations and really niche instructions. Football is a game with very very few tactical surprises today, the last genuine case of a manager bringing something revolutionary into the league was Conte - for a season teams simply could not get to grips with the wing back system, not because they were hammering teams but because it was so hard to score against them; people forget given he changed the system post back to back losses but they only conceded 24 goals in 32 games in that system. The next season, like an arms race, everyone was playing it and everyone understood it and then it died away.

Since then, really what has changed? Teams can all press, sure, and many looked at Klopp working on a budget and copied him. No one, not even Pep, has played tiki taka for about a decade, what really are teams doing that a pundit like Sounness or Keane would not understand? The truth of football is pretty boring, some teams spend a lot more than others and generally have better players - the way the 'weaker' teams close that gap is not through some complicated tactical structure, it's by having teams that graft their arses off and outwork and outfight the opposition. 'Higher tactical disciple' means nothing, teams now are far less structured than some of the Italian teams of yesteryear, 'micro coaching' is just a collection of letters. There are lots of interesting things coaches try but what has stuck around and changed the game?


On his punditry specifically though, that is the character that sells, in the same way Micah Richards is not actually a clown and Neville is not some perpetually self depreciating loser who fluked his way onto one of the greatest club teams of all time.
 


Middle aged man who rarely shows any positive emotion criticises 20 year old for not showing enough positive emotion after scoring a goal.
 
Gabriel Djemba-Bebe said:


Middle aged man who rarely shows any positive emotion criticises 20 year old for not showing enough positive emotion after scoring a goal.
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Was a lot more context around it - basically said he shouldn't be letting what idiots say get to him, and he should be enjoying moments like scoring a goal at Old Trafford.

I don't think he's wrong either.
 
Last week Keane was complaining that he didn't want to go to games anymore because the abuse he was getting. Now he's having a go at a young lad for being affected by his own fans abusing him.

I have no issue with him saying don't let these idiots ruin it for you, but he's gone way overboard and now he's having a go at the lad for being upset.
 
Keano's a strange one

Half the time he comes across as slightly bitter and contempteous middle aged man and half the time he makes sensible and valid comments/observations

I also think he is deliberately winding people up for a reaction at times
 
MF1138 said:
Last week Keane was complaining that he didn't want to go to games anymore because the abuse he was getting. Now he's having a go at a young lad for being affected by his own fans abusing him.

I have no issue with him saying don't let these idiots ruin it for you, but he's gone way overboard and now he's having a go at the lad for being upset.
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Just scored a goal for Man Utd, go and celebrate it, don’t use it as a chance to prove a point
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Was a lot more context around it - basically said he shouldn't be letting what idiots say get to him, and he should be enjoying moments like scoring a goal at Old Trafford.

I don't think he's wrong either.
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Was going to say exactly this. He said a lot about ignoring the idiots and enjoying it.
 
Keane is a lot easier to tolerate when you accept that he’s playing a cartoon character.

He plays up to the image of the footballer he was (which was genuine), which basically ensures he’ll continue to get paid handsomely for ranting about footballers well into his 60s. It’s smart.
 
Its who he is. We're long past the point of him playing up to a certain image he is on screen.
 
Bondi77 said:
We all know there was not one player on the pitch that was as good as Keano or Lampard in their day but to say they did not try is harsh.
We just need better quality and better finishing and the pundits will change their tune.
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Part of me thinks so much of our problems in recent years have been deluding ourselves that the team and individual players are not that far off and just need to do a little bit better in certain things and we'll be fine
 
Roy talked mainly about Garnacho not letting the idiots rob his moment, he's right, yet in a very Roy style.
Ian tried to make him understand that sometimes, we as persons cannot managed that, that we cannot control everything we feel
Roy bizarrely couldn't understand that from Ian and it's even worse because obviosuly Ian was talking from the prespective of his very own traumatic experiences that Roy perfectly know about.

PD: In fact Roy once absolutely bullied Cron for missing an easy chance, in his view he was being cheeky and later Cron scored and didn't celebrated the goal.
 
Annihilate Now! said:
Was a lot more context around it - basically said he shouldn't be letting what idiots say get to him, and he should be enjoying moments like scoring a goal at Old Trafford.

I don't think he's wrong either.
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Yeah it sounds harsh but he's absolutely right.

I said it a couple of days ago too but the harsh reality is that any footballer that lets criticism from fans affect him in the long run was never going to fufill his potential and make it to the top anyways. The best athletes in any sport all have that in common, they can block out the noise good or bad and just carry on towards their goals. Garnacho being as young as he is it's more understandable that it might affect him, but all the same Keane is right that if you want to play for United/Madrid/Barca/ or any other huge club you need to get over it and not let a few loud cnuts distract you from your job.
 
FrankDrebin said:
Its who he is. We're long past the point of him playing up to a certain image he is on screen.
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He definitely plays up to it. He’s a contrarian, definitely, and likes to wind people up, but shouting ‘baby’ down the camera about Andy Robertson (as funny as it was) is a calculated decision.
 
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