Page 62 - Alex Ferguson: My Autobiography

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ROY Keane was a player of energy, of guts and blood, with a fine instinct for the game and its
strategies. He was the most influential presence in the dressing room in the time we worked together.
Roy took a lot of the onus off me in making sure the dressing room was operating at a high level of

motivation. A manager could never be dismissive of that kind of help from a player.
But by the time Roy left United in November 2005, our relationship had broken down. I have strong
views about the sequence of events that led to him joining Celtic. But first, I should set out why he
was such an immense driving force for our club.
If Roy Keane thought you weren’t pulling your weight he would be right on top of you, straight

away. Many players faced his wrath for committing that crime and there would be no place to hide
from him. I never felt that was a bad aspect of his character. In all my time, the strong personalities
have helped shape the team’s actions. Bryan Robson, Steve Bruce, Eric Cantona: those players
enforced the will of the manager and the club.
In my playing days, managers seldom interrogated players in the adrenaline-drenched moments
straight after the match. The initial finger-pointing tended to come from the players, often in the bath.
Or there would be confrontations while the water was still running: ‘You, you missed that chance, you
…’

As a player I was always having a go at the goalkeepers and defenders for conceding goals. So I
knew that if I missed a chance at the other end, I would be receiving it back with interest from those
with the less glamorous jobs whom I had criticised on previous occasions. Those were the risks of
being outspoken. These days, managers always have their say after the game. If they want to analyse,
criticise or praise, there’s an area of managerial involvement right after the final whistle where

influence can be brought to bear: 10 to 15 minutes.
With Roy there were episodes of great friction and drama as he tried to impose his will on the
team. On one occasion, as I came into the dressing room, Roy and Ruud van Nistelrooy were at it,
hammer and tongs. They had to be pulled apart by the players. At least Van Nistelrooy had the
courage to stand up to Roy, because not everyone did. He was an intimidating, ferocious individual.
His mode when angry was to attack, to lay into people.
I believe – and Carlos Queiroz was at one with me on this – that Roy Keane’s behaviour pattern

changed when he realised he was no longer the Roy Keane of old. We’re certain of that. Acting on a
conviction that some of his strengths had been stolen from him by injury and age, we tried to change
his job description, for his benefit as much as ours.
We tried to alter his role by discouraging him from charging all over the pitch and making forward
runs. Every time a team-mate received the ball, Roy would want it off him. That was an admirable
quality. The religion at United was that when one of our players had the ball, we moved, and all the