Roy Keane at 50: The best quotes from, or about, the legendary Corkonian
Roy Keane
“Aggression is what I do. I go to war. You don’t contest football matches in a reasonable state of mind.”
“It’s good to get angry. It’s an emotion and part of the game. It’s good to go a bit mad but I don’t throw teacups around. That’s not my style – I’d rather throw punches.”
“People say I’m hard, I’m Mr Angry. I’m this, I’m that. I just want to win matches. There’s no point going out there and being Mr Nice Guy. We get 55,000 at Old Trafford and I don’t think they want fellas going out there and thinking: Ah, if we lose, so what?”
“People ask where my competitive streak comes from. It’s fear. I have a big fear of failure.”
“People say ‘go with the flow’ but do you know what goes with the flow? Dead fish.”
“Every week you, Senegal this, Senegal that, why don’t you f**kin’ play for them then?”
“If it had come to a fight, Patrick [Vieira] could probably have killed me.”
“The last song before the players went on to the pitch was ‘Dancing Queen’ by Abba. What really worried me was that none of the players – not one – said: ‘Get that s**t off.’ They were going out to play a match, men versus men, testosterone levels were high. You’ve got to hit people at pace. F*****g’ ‘Dancing Queen.’ It worried me. I didn’t have as many leaders as I thought.”
"Away from home our fans are fantastic, I'd call them the hardcore fans. But at home they have a few drinks and probably the prawn sandwiches, and they don't realise what's going on out on the pitch. I don't think some of the people who come to Old Trafford can spell 'football', never mind understand it."
“I’d waited long enough. I f*****g hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you ****. And don’t ever stand over me again sneering about fake injuries. And tell your pal [David] Wetherall there’s some for him as well. I didn’t wait for Mr Elleray to show the red card. I turned and walked to the dressing room. My attitude is an eye for an eye.”
“He told us that we were a disgrace to the club, and that we’d woken Bobby Charlton up, that Bobby had come out of his room and seen us. Peter took responsibility for the fight, which was good. I admired him for it. But Sir Bobby could have tried to break it up.”
“The last time I was charged by the FA they had a murder lawyer in against me, so it’s going to be a hard case to win.”
“My first game was Clyde, away, in the third round of the Scottish Cup. We were beaten 2-1. It was a nightmare. I wasn’t happy with my own game. I did OK, but OK wasn’t good enough. After the game – the disappointment. As I was taking my jersey off, I noticed the Nike tag was still on it. When I got on the bus John Hartson, a really good guy, was already sitting there and he was eating a packet of crisps – with a fizzy drink. I said to myself: ‘Welcome to Hell.’”
“I got Robbie’s [Savage] mobile number and rang him. It went to his voicemail: ‘Hi, it’s Robbie – whazzup!’ Like the Budweiser ad. I never called him back. I thought: ‘I can’t be f****** signing that’.”
“On a night we got beaten in the cup by Luton, the staff came in and said, ‘Clive Clarke has had a heart attack at Leicester’. I said, ‘Is he OK? I’m shocked they found one, you could never tell by the way he plays’.”
“Who do you think you are having meetings about me? You were a crap player and you are a crap manager. The only reason I have any dealings with you is that somehow you are the manager of my country and you’re not even Irish you English ****!”
“I love playing for my country but my sanity is more important.”
“Will those on telly yesterday be remembered for what they’ve achieved? None whatsoever. I wouldn’t trust them to walk my dog. There are ex-players and ex-referees being given air-time who I wouldn’t listen to in a pub.”
Wags.
“If they don’t want to come because their wife wants to go shopping in London, it’s a sad state of affairs. To me, that player is weak because his wife runs his life.”
People say I’m a bit old school; I call it good school. No matter what’s going on at your club, you go out and give it your all. The idea that these players may be a little bit upset…and it’s not just at United. The modern player, they aren’t just weak players, they are very weak human beings.”
“When we lost it ruined my mood for days. Current players are too busy filming themselves dancing in the dressing rooms to care about losing”.
“Cloughie was dead right, absolutely. It was the best thing he ever did for me.”
“Different managers, both brilliant. I think Clough’s warmth was genuine, but with Ferguson it was pure business – everything is business.”
“Jon Walters wanted to leave. We were four or five games into the season. He’d heard that Stoke were interested in him. I said: ‘Jon, I haven’t had a call from anybody.’ He came back a few days later. ‘They’re definitely after me.’ I said: ‘I’ve heard nothing. If there’s a bid, I’ll tell you. I’ve nothing to hide from you. You can ring the owner. I don’t do the business deals.’ ‘I’m not having this.’ There was effing and blinding, a bit of shoving. ‘Why don’t you f*****g believe me?’ He was sold to Stoke a week later. We’ve shook hands since.”
“He [Paul Scholes] was a top, top player. But I still don’t fall for the boy-next-door image, or that he’s dead humble. He has more of an edge to him. Everyone thinks he lives in a council flat. The Class of ’92 – all good players, but their role at the club has become exaggerated. ‘Class of 92’ seems to have grown its own legs; it has become a brand. It’s as if they were a team away from the team, and they’re not shy of plugging into it. We all had the same aims; we all had the hunger."
"I had a leather chair that swung around, a swivel chair. For the first few days I used to swing around on it. If any of the players or the staff had peeped through the office window they would have seen me going 'Weeehhhh!'"
“Yorkie has officially retired about 5 times… The man’s a clown… People are going on about the game and agents and directors of football and managers losing their jobs, but we should be worried about people like him… Clowns. That’s the last time I’m going to say clown… If he’s the vice-president of FIFA, God help us all.”
“Don’t you f—ing talk to me about loyalty, Carlos. You left this club after 12 months a few years ago for the Real Madrid job. Don’t you dare question my loyalty.'”
“I was a big fan of Maradona growing up and of the current crop Ronaldo is good but Messi is the best I’ve ever seen. I don’t dish out praise lightly but Messi deserves it. I look for weaknesses in his game and I can’t find them.”
“I’ve got my kids (tattooed) on my right arm: Shannon, Caragh, Aidan and Leah… The wife did ask me why didn’t I get hers and I said ‘they’ll always be my kids but you won’t necessarily always be my wife,’ which she wasn’t too pleased about.”
“I think if Liverpool were playing out in my back garden, I wouldn’t watch them. They’re just drifting. Drifting nowhere.”
"Before the game there was all this stuff about anti-racism and anti-bullying. It would be a good idea to start wearing wristbands for anti-diving."
“There has been lots of things said about me over the years. I am happy to comment on people’s opinion in football I respect, but Tony Cascarino is a man I certainly do not respect, for a lot of reasons, and if I told you, you would be shocked. So the day I worry about Tony Cascarino will be a very sad day of my life.”
“Unlike humans, dogs don’t talk shit.”
“Fail to prepare, prepare to fail.”
“I only played with him for two seasons at the end of my career, and he had some injuries, but I saw more than enough to appreciate his brilliance. He is one of the best players I have ever seen. Not only that, but he could motivate players too. He was the boss too. He is also a good man.”
“He was the best in midfield; he could play everywhere. He could play the holding role and be defensive, but then he could suddenly burst forward and score goals. He was so intelligent in how he played the game and let me tell you, it felt good to have him behind me for four seasons. He’d win the ball and then give it to me. And what a character!”
“I only ever hit Roy the once. He got up so I couldn’t have hit him very hard.”
“He doesn’t know this, but everybody (in the Manchester United squad when Keane joined) was buzzing to have him there. We knew that he was a special player, we knew that he loved to have a bit of a moan, but we knew that he could produce the goods week in, week out, and we knew he was a winner.”
“I remember my first training session: I got the ball from the keeper, I passed it to Gary Neville at right-back and Keane just exploded, saying: ‘You passed it sideways, that’s the easy pass! You’re not at Leeds or West Ham now!’ At the time I thought: ‘What’s he talking about?’ Then when I got home, I sat and thought about it and thought: ‘Yeah, you’ve got to try and affect the game.'”
“It (Keane’s display in the 1999 Champions League semi-final against Juventus) was the most emphatic display of selflessness I have seen on a football field. Pounding over every blade of grass, competing as if he would rather die of exhaustion than lose, he inspired all around him. I felt it was an honour to be associated with such a player.”
“He was a great influence, really. If Roy had a go at you, he did it because he cared. He was the best captain you could wish for. He would tear you to shreds on the pitch if you gave away the ball, ‘Get your effing touch right, effing this, effing that,’ but as soon as you got into the dressing room, it was over. He was a winner. I’ve met dedicated professionals, but he had something else.”
“You never felt you were beaten when Keaney was in your team. He never threw in the towel. I don’t think any of the rest of us were less determined to win than Keaney, but what makes him different is the way he gets it across, his anger if you like. More than any other player I’ve seen, he affects players around him.”
“For a complete player, without a doubt Keano. Apart from the bad side he had, he was the complete midfield player for me. He was an inspiration, a leader, could score you vital goals, he could tackle when he had to, he would be naughty when he had to but playing alongside him for three or four seasons helped him improve my game a lot.”
“As he waded in with one expletive after another I asked myself, ‘Was this my captain? Was this the man who could serve Ireland as a role model for our children?’ The answer was no.”
“Roy was unbelievable to play alongside and someone you could always trust. I soon learned that if you weren’t on your game he would be on top of you to make sure you were playing your part for the team. I had a few bollockings from him, but that made you work harder to avoid them. He was a great leader and captain: he drove us on and he was our manager on the pitch.”
“Box to box, probably the best midfield player in terms of being an engine for the team that I’ve played with. He never really had bad games, (and) was a good leader in midfield.”
“If I could pick one player in my team, I would always pick Roy Keane, in front of any other players I’ve played with. Keano had everything; he was a leader, a great player, and probably the best I ever played with.”
“Every team needs a player like Keane, someone who can control the game and dominate the tempo. Tactically and positionally he always got it right and is very good in one-on-one duels.”
“What I like about him is the fact that he wouldn’t talk; he’d take the kick, he wouldn’t say anything, then, on the next one, he’d give it to you and he would expect, of course, that you say nothing. He’s not the kind of player who talks a lot. So he’ll take the kick, he will give back, but I like him – he’s quite fair.”
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