Soccer: Fergie reputation at stake over Keane - Clough

Brian Clough claims Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson "risks losing his own credibility" if he does not bring Roy Keane to book following his horror tackle on Alfie Haaland.

The Irish skipper, sold by Nottingham Forest to United shortly after Clough retired from the game in 1993, was sent off for the knee-high lunge which felled Haaland during the Manchester derby at Old Trafford.

Clough said: "I can believe Lennox Lewis didn’t see that punch coming last Sunday morning and the skipper of the Titanic had some excuse for not spotting an iceberg if it was dark.

"But I couldn’t believe my big ears when Fergie said he had not seen the tackle and that the secretary thought it was a sending-off.

"A sending-off? It was among the worst fouls I have ever seen in all my time playing, managing and watching football.

"I would have thought Ferguson would have made it his business to see a television replay if he wasn’t sure what happened.

"To come out and say he hadn’t seen it well, that ridiculed our intelligence and compounded the crime as far as I’m concerned.

"Even now, several days later, we’re still waiting for him to condemn it."

Clough, who plucked Keane from obscurity by signing him for £10,000 from Cobh Ramblers in 1990, also claimed the fiery midfielder’s behaviour was embarrassing for his club.

"As if cutting Haaland in half wasn’t bad enough, Keane then swoops over him like Dracula. All he needed was the black cloak.

"As the captain of a great club and a very fine player, Roy Keane is also expected to be an ambassador. At that moment he was a bloody embarrassment.

"I get sick and tired of hearing so many people, commentators and others, telling us how much running Keane does in a match. How he covers every blade of grass.

"He’s entitled to be fresher than most - he has so much time off.

"Eight red cards, never mind that long injury - which was his fault, not Haaland’s, incidentally. He has had more than enough rest through suspensions alone. He has had more holidays than Judith Chalmers.

"They say Al Capone did some good things in his life. Trouble was, he would go out and shoot people. Keane is becoming United’s Al Capone - and Alex’s reputation is at stake here."

Meanwhile Keane has continued his crusade to shake up the status quo at United by accusing his team-mates of adopting a lacklustre approach to their challenge for honours this season.

While Ferguson’s side have again run away with the Premiership, Keane has been incensed by a mediocre Champions League campaign.

"I have seen United players getting complacent, thinking they’ve done it all and getting carried away by a bit of success," he said.

"All you have to do is drop your standards by five or 10% and it’s obvious, especially in Europe. You can carry maybe one player, but no more than that.

"You can see it in training when players just go through the motions. You can’t do that, you always have to give your best. It’s up to the manager to spot it.

"Maybe I’ll help him, but ultimately the only person who can sort it out is the player himself. Real desire has to come from within.

"We really have to be careful not to think that our success, and us as a team, is going to go on and on. We really have to start dominating Europe as well as the Premiership.

"It is up to the manager to know when to move people on, and he is strong enough to know when to do it.

"Sometimes you don’t realise it, maybe it’s already coming to the end. I’m not being over-dramatic.

"A few players have tied themselves to long-term contracts, but contracts mean nothing now."

United’s success over the last decade has in no small part been put down to the team spirit at the club, with the current crop of stars reportedly being especially close.

However, Keane explodes the myth that everything is sweetness and light in the Old Trafford dressing room.

"If you go to any office, not everyone is going to like each other. It is the same at United. Not everyone is pals," said the midfielder.

"You don’t have to be best mates, you just have to share the same aim of winning trophies.

"I have made no special effort to sort it out. Look, I’m not a counsellor or anything. I’m just an ordinary human being, a footballer.

"I have had clashes with others, so I’m not one to talk. Everyone has their own lives. Anyway, I don’t think I’ve ever given any of them my phone number."