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Roy Keane claims Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson is trying to 'control' his former captain
Roy Keane has given a typically candid assessment of his strained relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson, defending his right to criticise his former club.
Keane provoked Ferguson’s ire when, working for ITV, he said he felt Manchester United had “got what they deserved” when they were knocked out of the Champions League by Basle.
Ferguson then questioned Keane’s managerial record, saying “[Roy] had an opportunity to prove himself as a manager [of Sunderland and Ipswich Town] too.”
He also wrote in his programme notes, for the recent game against Wolves, that he was surprised by criticism “even from people we thought were perhaps on our side”.
But Keane has hit back, saying: “There was an angle there of trying to get the fans to look differently at me and I thought ‘I can’t have that’. I thought it was ridiculous.
"I can hardly do the TV wearing the United scarf and if me telling the young players to pull their socks up is such a hard thing to accept, I ask myself what kind of world are we living in.
“I know how this works, absolutely.
"When I spoke to Alex about management before I left United, the two words he always used were power and control.
"I understand power and control over people inside the football club, understand that 100 per cent. But not power and control of the people who have left the club.
“He’s trying to have power and control over me but I left Man United six years ago.
"So I just thought, ‘You didn’t need to go there’, but having said that, it didn’t surprise me.
“If you want to question my managerial record, listen, you could question every pundit’s managerial skill in relation to his and we’re all going to come up short.
"But I would also say that without players like myself, maybe he wouldn’t have such a good managerial record because players who go down the punditry road, it’s soon forgotten that we put bodies on the line for him.”
Keane has never hidden his feelings about accusing Ferguson of failing to stand by him following his abrupt exit from the club in 2005.
Keane also received a letter from United’s solicitors asking him not to criticise the club after he gave an interview to an Irish newspaper in 2008.
“People say [Ferguson] stood by me in difficult times,” he said.
“But he didn’t when I was 34, not when I was towards the end and had a few differences with Carlos Queiroz.
"All of a sudden then, ‘Off you go, Roy, and here’s the statement we’ve done’.”
QPR manager Neil Warnock said Keane’s remarks would fail to perturb his United counterpart.
“Do you think Alex Ferguson cares about Roy Keane, Joe Bloggs or even the Prime Minister?
"I don’t think he’ll have lost any sleep over it.”