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Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane admitted that he and his former coach Sir Alex Ferguson had similar characters and also had a common passion of Manchester United during their days at the club. He even revealed that he had no bitterness for his former coach in spite of their disassociation.
Ferguson praised
Keane had stated sometime back that he is uncertain of forgetting the past with his former manager after he left the club in 2005. During a Q&A session in London to promote his new book ‘The Second Half’ on Monday, the current Aston Villa and Republic of Ireland assistant manager complimented Ferguson’s managerial traits.
The former Manchester United midfielder said:
“Twelve and a half years, to work under one manager. I don’t want people to think I’m bitter and twisted towards Alex Ferguson, but I’m obviously going to say I’m disappointed with his comments, what he said about me,”
“I’m not for one minute playing down what he achieved. Absolutely amazing.
“I played under good managers, bad managers. The top managers get a feel for the group, they know what you need. Whatever Alex Ferguson’s strengths and weaknesses, that was by far his biggest strength.
“Me and Alex Ferguson, we had the same type of traits, of what Manchester United was about. I think that probably created the problems towards to the end. We almost knew we were coming to the end.”
Fergie – a master of team talks at United
The Irishman was signed by Ferguson from Nottingham Forest in 1993 also declared that the comments made on him were all a “a pack of lies”.
The 43-year-old’s career ended after a disputed interview on MUTV. He narrated one instance of a pre-match team-talk involving Ferguson’s strength of reading the players minds.
Keane said, “I thought I knew what the group might need, that we didn’t need a big team talk,”.“It was Tottenham at home. I thought please don’t go on about Tottenham, we all know what Tottenham is about, they are nice and tidy but we’ll fucking do them. He came in and said: ‘Lads, it’s Tottenham’, and that was it. Brilliant.
“It could have been a European semi-final, it could have been Leeds away, it could have been a home League Cup tie – Alex Ferguson always had a feel of the group.”
