Keane was right at the time, and he’s still right now. There’s nothing to hit back at

Another week, another media “sensation” that everyone is talking about.

This week’s — if you hadn’t noticed — is Alex Ferguson’s latest autobiography for the release of which a media scrum descended on a press conference at the Institute Of Directors in central London. Perhaps the idea of such a self-proclaimed socialist holding court in one of the bastions of British capitalism was intentionally ironic, or maybe, as he told the assembled hacks, “Money can change everything.” That quote was a reference to Manchester City’s newfound riches but, for many of us more cynical United fans, it has long been equally applicable to the man himself.

Roy Keane would certainly seem to think so. As he said back in 2011, “People say Ferguson always does what’s right for Man United. I don’t think he does. I think he does what’s right for him. The Irish thing (Ferguson’s dispute over Rock Of Gibraltar)... This didn’t help the club, the manager going to law against its leading shareholder. How could it be of benefit to Man United?”

Yesterday was Ferguson’s chance for revenge, with his book detailing the fallout in 2005 that led to Keane leaving United after 12 years but, unfortunately for everyone in attendance, he didn’t manage a very good job of it.

Ferguson insists that Keane is “a man of extremes” and apparently pinpoints the souring of their relationship to Keane’s decline on the pitch and refusal to remodel his game: “He thought he was Peter Pan. No one is.”

That will come as a surprise to anyone who remembers United’s performances from 2002-05 — if there was one thing Keane did, it was adapt his game. The problem was that he was generally unaided by the procession of duds Ferguson’s extravagant agent friends produced from the back of their journeymen-laden lorries.

It was payments to those agents that Coolmore focused on in their ‘99 Questions’ to United’s board at the height of their dispute with Ferguson in 2004. Unsurprisingly, the Scotsman was forced to back down. That seismic affair, ending as it did with the Glazers taking over the club, is deemed worthy of just nine lines in the 350 pages. Verily, “grown men move on”, as Ferguson once said when questioned about the affair.

Ferguson’s avoidance of the topic suggests Keane was right to raise the matter in the showdown that led to his sacking. “The hardest part of Roy’s body is his tongue,” Ferguson writes. “He has the most savage tongue you can imagine. What I noticed about him that day as I was arguing with him was that his eyes started to narrow, almost to wee black beads. It was frightening to watch.”

Oh to have been witness to that dressing room dressing down! If ever there was an example of someone speaking truth to power... not that Ferguson viewed it as such.

“The one thing I will not allow is a loss of control, because control was my only saviour.”

At the time, supporters were fully behind Keane in the wake of his infamous banned MUTV attack on his team-mates following a string of substandard performances, his name being sung lustily at the following game in Paris. Ferguson now blames Keane for “two young players being booed” that night — ignoring the fact the whole team (bar van Nistelrooy) was widely barracked — and says he expects Keane to hit back. “The nature of the man you can expect that, that is the personality he has.” But why bother? Keane was right at the time, and he’s still right now. There’s nothing to hit back at. As Michael Crick — author of the definitive biography on Ferguson — said yesterday, it’s all “a touch dull”. Clearly, Ferguson’s fires have waned. It would seem he quit at the right time.

* John-Paul O’Neill is a contributor to Manchester United fanzine, Red Issue.