Roy Keane Takes Swipe at Sir Alex Ferguson During Scathing Man Utd Rant

Keane also wrote off Darren Fletcher’s claim to be Man Utd’s permanent manager going forward.

Roy Keane (left) is no great fan of Sir Alex Ferguson. / Sky Sports/Justin Goff Photos/Getty Images

Roy Keane couldn’t help himself. When launching another damning tirade on the mess behind the scenes at Manchester United, the former club captain pointed to the continued presence of legendary manager Sir Alex Ferguson as “a bad smell” hanging over each one of his successors.

Keane and Ferguson famously fell out two decades ago. The tension cranked up during a training camp ahead of the 2005–06 season and peaked when the ex-midfielder delivered a scathing review of his teammates’ performance in a 4–1 defeat to Middlesbrough for the club’s in-house broadcaster. Keane was fined £5,000 ($6,700) and left the club by mutual consent the following month.

The prominent pundit has done little to diffuse the air of ill-will directed at Ferguson. On the contrary, Keane appears hell-bent on lambasting the iconic manager at any given opportunity. Following the departure of yet another failed Ferguson successor, the retired skipper took it upon himself to bemoan the continued presence of the Scotsman and his former chief executive David Gill.

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“You see who’s making the decisions at Manchester United,” Keane tailed off during a rant on Sky Sports this week, “you still have Ferguson and David Gill hanging on like a bad smell.”

Ferguson and Gill remain non-executive directors on United’s board and are regular figures at Old Trafford. The looming spectre of the manager, in particular, is a familiar point of debate at United.

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History on Roy Keane’s Side

Sir Matt Busby did not last long in retirement. / Daily Mirror/Mirrorpix/Getty Images

The Red Devils boast a joint-record 20 top-flight titles but only three managers are responsible for these triumphs. After the success of Ernest Mangnall in the first decade of the 20th century, Sir Matt Busby would oversee United’s greatest successes across the 1950s and ’60s until Ferguson’s reign. Much like his compatriot, Busby did not take to retirement.

While Ferguson would trade the dugout for the executive seats, Busby retained the title of manager after choosing Wilf McGuinness as his successor in 1969. The new man thrust into the Old Trafford dugout was designated as the “chief coach”—a forerunner to Ruben Amorim’s grievances with the term “head coach” half a century later—and never earned the respect of Busby’s players.

“Not everyone, sadly, would play for Wilf,” United’s David Sadler would later reflect. “The side as a whole did not give 100% effort for him. It was as simple as that.”

Busby returned to the throne in an ultimately doomed second act which Ferguson has, thus far, managed to avoid.

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Keane: ‘Any Ex-United Player Has Got a Chance’

Sir Jim Ratcliffe (left) has often been spotted next to Sir Alex Ferguson. / Jean Catuffe/Getty Images

Keane’s criticisms did not focus solely on Ferguson. He had plenty of ire left over for minority co-owner Sir Jim Ratcliffe and his director of football Jason Wilcox, who oversaw Amorim’s disastrous 14-month reign.

“What happens in these job interviews? I’m intrigued,” Keane asked, his beady eyes dancing around the Sky Sports studio. “Why do they keep giving certain people a job? What happens in the interview that they sit there and go, and 12, 14 months later, ‘he’s not the guy for us.’

“Do you not suss that out when you speak to them? You look somebody in the eye and go...

“Who’s making the decisions? Ratcliffe, Wilcox? Who’s coming into this interview process, you’re speaking to a manager, you get a feel for somebody and go, ‘He’s the guy for us?’”

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The criteria for a suitable candidate in Keane’s mind relied purely on the intangibles. “Almost forget the CV,” he declared. “You need something on your CV, of course, that you’ve won a trophy or managed a long time. But you’ve got to look somebody in the eye and go, ‘Are you the man to get us places?’

“What happens when somebody walks in your dressing room, the top players sit and go, ‘What have you got for us?’ That’s what the top lads do. And if you haven’t got the answers, the players are going to eat you alive.”

Keane bluntly rejected the idea of current interim manager Darren Fletcher being the right pair of hands to take on the permanent position and instead called upon Newcastle United’s Eddie Howe as his preferred choice.

“United-Burnley, the standard of the game was a joke,” Keane moaned after watching Fletcher oversee Wednesday’s 2–2 draw at Turf Moor. “Everyone after the game was like, ‘It wasn’t bad, we did well.’ Nonsense! Absolute rubbish. We’re going around in circles. Any ex-United player has got a chance.”

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