Sport

Brendan Crossan: Like him or loath him, Roy Keane keeps fellow pundits honest

Roy Keane challenged Jamie Redknapp's analysis of the Spurs team last Sunday
Roy Keane challenged Jamie Redknapp's analysis of the Spurs team last Sunday Roy Keane challenged Jamie Redknapp's analysis of the Spurs team last Sunday

SO Roy Keane was at it again. Lighting up our television screens and social media on a sluggish Sunday afternoon like only he can.

The Cork fool, perhaps the wisest one in the room.

Leaning back in his Sky studio chair, with his scrunched up face, greying stubble, an incendiary device capable of exploding at any time, completely at odds with Jamie Redknapp’s pitch-side assessment of the erratic form of Tottenham Hotspur.

Nobody plays to the gallery quite like Keane. And he knows it too.

The thing is, Jamie Redknapp is a very likeable chap. A decent pundit.

The safe and well researched kind that would have a good handle on the trials and tribulations of one of his former clubs.

He’d barely introduced himself to the pundits back in the studio than Keane was showing visible signs of exasperation with the direction of Redknapp’s analysis.

What unfolded over the next few minutes was the best lockdown entertainment of the afternoon.

And this was before a ball had been kicked in anger.

What followed between Spurs and Burnley was an instantly forgettable affair. It often is when Burnley are playing.

I’ve attended umpteen press conferences with Roy Keane over the past two decades. Not one of them has failed to deliver.

The first was in a crowded room back in 2001, deep in the bowels of the old Lansdowne Road the day before Keane would take the legs from under Marc Overmars in the opening exchanges, and Jason McAteer’s second-half goal would dump Holland out of contention and move the Irish a step closer to the 2002 World Cup finals.

As the camera bulbs flashed and reporters jockeyed for position to get close to the Manchester United legend, Keane was oblivious to the chaos around him and was already wearing his game-face.

Like a chiselled light middleweight champion who’d just made weight, he was a man preparing for war the following afternoon.

Some poor Dutch journalist had the misfortune to be threatened by the Cork man’s intimidating stare after asking him about Jaap Stam’s recent fall-out with United manager Alex Ferguson.

As cursory as could be, Keane told the journalist to leave the subject, and he dutifully did.

I remember he graced us with his presence on the eve of a qualification game in Cyprus where he was about to win his 50th cap and how the milestone "meant nothing" to him - only victory the following evening in Nicosia mattered.

I've watched seasoned journalists become tongue-tied if they didn't quite phrase a question properly. During the early 'Noughties', Keane was a brooding presence around the Irish camp but arguably at his absolute peak.

Like anyone else who attended his press conferences, whether as a player or assistant to Martin O'Neill, I enjoyed them immensely.

You knew it wouldn't be a day for anodyne pleasantries. If you asked a question, you'd get a direct answer - of the unvarnished kind that is sadly becoming less and less in a media-trained world.

I’ve read his books and enjoyed them, but that is not to say I agree or respect everything the man says. Far from it.

In the dying embers of Martin O’Neill’s reign as Republic of Ireland manager Keane let himself down by picking fights with Harry Arter and Jonathan Walters.

He stooped to a new low when he goaded Walters for crying during an emotional interview on RTE’s The Late, Late Show where the former Irish international discussed several family tragedies.

So Roy Keane doesn’t walk on water and undoubtedly plays up to his no-nonsense, devil-may-care stereotype.

Beneath the hard man image, Keane has always struck me as a highly intelligent, incisive individual who has more knowledge of the game than his studs-up punditry suggests.

You don’t interpret the game like he did, particularly in his latter days, without knowing its every nuance. Keane’s problem, quite clearly, has been his inability to impart those years of football wisdom in the dug-out or the changing room.

Something is missing in his armoury. Perhaps temperament or patience.

And yet, for all his knowledge he rarely delves into the tactical side of the game in the Sky studios.

His approach is all about desire, will to win, attitude, team-work. He leaves 4-2-3-1 or 4-3-3 and talk of ‘low blocks’ to others.

But what he does do in his punditry role is he keeps others honest. He didn’t let Gary Neville off the hook when showing sympathy to Matteo Darmian who didn’t close down the ball during a Manchester United home defeat to Man City two seasons ago.

While there are some notable exceptions including, ironically, Neville and Jamie Carragher, a lot of football punditry is neither insightful or entertaining.

When Redknapp talked about the Spurs team being full of quality and international players last Sunday, Keane went on the attack.

“If you can trap a ball you can play for your country these days,” reacted Keane. “Everybody plays for their country. If you don’t play for your country, then you are a bad player.”

It was a deeply uncomfortable few minutes for Redknapp as he clearly wasn’t expecting to be challenged by one of his colleagues.

While football fans got angry with the Cork man’s scrunched up face and dismissive attitude towards Redknapp, what we got as a result of Keane’s approach was better, more authentic analysis from the former Spurs midfielder.

Redknapp rallied quite well.

But he had no intentions of calling out the Spurs goalkeeper [Hugo Lloris] for not being good enough or the three right backs at Jose Mourinho’s disposal.

Without Keane’s intervention, Redknapp would have stuck to script and given a more sanitised assessment of the Spurs defence and midfield and the pre-match chatter would have rolled seamlessly into a painfully one-sided football spectacle, which has become the norm in the English Premiership these days.

Unfortunately, in these instances, it invariably comes down to who you like and who you don’t like rather than acknowledging the catalyst for the only notable analysis and entertainment on yet another lockdown Sunday.