Keane: footy was better in my day

ROY KEANE believes football is changing — and by no means for the better.

The Ipswich Town manager was reflecting on a week in which Sam Allardyce has been unceremoniously sacked as Blackburn boss, Carlos Tevez has decided to leave Manchester City and his own beloved Manchester United beat Arsenal in what Keane described as a game with “no intensity”.

The former Ireland skipper says football isn’t the same as when he fell in love with it as a young boy growing up in Cork.

“The game is changing, we’ve seen that again this week. I don’t think it’s the game we all knew and loved 15 to 20 years ago that I got involved in.

“I don’t think we love it as much as we did years ago because of what we see every day of the week with players and with top managers losing their jobs,” he said, without citing specific names.

“If I were to lose my job tomorrow there would be nobody complaining too much, but I mean the top managers who are getting good results and who are losing their jobs.”

Keane knows where he places the blame: “These owners coming in from other countries, who I don’t think understand the game. It’s an ego thing, it’s like a toy they can play with, buying these clubs. Sacking top managers — it’s crazy.

“We see players wanting to leave a club after being there two minutes because they aren’t happy with what’s going on. Crazy, crazy.

“We’ve praised a lot of the foreigners for what they’ve done over the years, but a lot of the foreigners need to look at what they’ve done to the game over the last few weeks and months, whether that’s players or owners.”

Keane says Monday’s United-Arsenal match, which ended 1-0 to his old club, was a further example of English football’s downward trend: “I thought it was rubbish.

“There was no intensity, no one getting stuck into each other, everyone was pals with each other. People go on about players trying to win league titles, they’re not even trying a leg some of them.!

“I don’t think I’ve ever been so annoyed watching a game, besides the one I had to watch last Saturday, given how we played in the second half.

“The match on Monday night was supposed to be between two top teams. I thought United had a great will to win the game, but the game is changing, and not for the good.”