Roy Keane was trending on Twitter over the weekend. There’s nothing unusual about that: he’s trending every weekend. Only this time it was because of something he was rumoured to be about to do – go back to Sunderland as manager – rather than something funny he had said on TV.
At first you might think this is obviously good news for Keane. Sunderland is a big club fallen on hard times that was recently bought by a billionaire: is there a better profile of club to take over? They are currently in League One but well-positioned to reach the play-offs at least.
If Keane is ever going to re-establish himself in club football management, more than eleven years after he was sacked by Ipswich, this looks like about the best opportunity he could realistically get.
Most of the top Keane videos are of his Sky punditry over the last couple of years, many including words like HEATED or ANGRIEST in the title
But maybe this is in fact bad news. If Keane does go to Sunderland, he will be leaving behind a job he is brilliant at for one in which he has never demonstrated much aptitude. It’s not unlike Michael Jordan deciding to become a baseball player.
The idea that Keane is the Michael Jordan of football punditry will annoy many who think pundits should offer high-level technical and tactical insight, which is not really Keane’s style. You can’t remember too many instances of him spotting and deconstructing fine technical details in the style perfected by Jamie Carragher on Monday Night Football.
But the viewing figures on Keane clips show that his way of doing things is no less popular with the audience. TV punditry is ultimately a form of entertainment, and nothing is more entertaining than watching people attack other people.
Just look at the most-viewed “Roy Keane” videos on YouTube. The clear leader, with 12 million views, is his foul on Alf-Inge Haaland from 2001. You could lament the senseless absurdity of this, that a brilliant playing career should be reduced to its most stupid, vicious moment. Or you could face the reality: the stuff commentators sometimes say we don’t want to see? It turns out that is the stuff we want to see.
Scrolling down through the list of most-viewed Keane videos, it’s a while before you come to another one that includes footage from his actual playing career. But “Roy Keane’s Most Famous Moments” turns out not to include any of his great football moments – crushing the Spice Boys in the 1996 FA Cup final, or glancing in that header against Juventus, or scoring two goals against Arsenal to wrap up the title in August 1999, or running upfield to help create McAteer’s winner against Holland.
Instead it is more of his famous confrontations: slapping Alan Shearer, shouting at Patrick Vieira in the tunnel, stamping on Gareth Southgate, squabbling with McAteer in that game at Sunderland just after the World Cup. Keane used to decide games with a hundred small moments rather than one big one, and it turns out that type of domination simply doesn’t play as well with YouTube audience as that time he kicked Neil Pointon up in the air (2.5 million views and counting).
Most of the top Keane videos are of his Sky punditry over the last couple of years, many including words like HEATED or ANGRIEST in the title. He will be criticising players for hugging in the tunnel, or saying you can’t trust a word Paul Pogba says, or telling Bruno Fernandes not to be such a baby, etc.
One thing that makes Keane such a draw is the way he seems to take it personally when players mess up. When João Felix missed a late chance for Portugal against Belgium in the Euros: “I thought he was an impostor, the guy’s an impostor. Your country needs you and he comes on... hit the target! A hundred million? If I was Ronaldo, I think you’d be going after him in the dressing room.”
Or when David de Gea had the audacity to have the ball hammered through him by Steven Bergwijn in the first league game after the 2020 Covid shutdown: “I am sick to death of this goalkeeper. I would be fighting him at half-time, there’s no doubt about that. I would be swinging punches at that guy.”
He might soon be back in an actual dressing room instead of fantasising about being in one. But the very skills that make him the hottest content creator in football punditry are dangerous in the dressing room.
“His man management would be zero out of 100,” Gabby Agbonlahor told TalkSport over the weekend, before describing an episode from Keane’s stint as assistant to Paul Lambert at Aston Villa in 2014. A shooting drill had gone badly and Lambert and Keane were angry with the players. Agbonlahor, as captain, replied that in his opinion the drill had been badly structured – players were spending too long standing around getting cold between shots.
Keane interjected: “oh, are you cold? Do you want another warm up?” Agbonlahor says he replied: “I’m not talking to you Roy, I’m talking to the manager,” and that this made Keane so angry he left Villa the next day. Whether Agbonlahor really did provoke Keane’s departure is beside the point.
More relevant is the suggestion that a player tried to make a serious point about training and Keane responded with sneers. It’s exactly this kind of thing that makes for great studio arguments but terrible man-management.
So why not stick to what you are good at, instead of being drawn back into a world experience suggests you lack the patience for? Back in the day, Keane affected scorn at the idea of media work: “I’d hope I would have a proper job”.
He recently appeared in a Sky Bet ad playing an exaggerated “Roy Keane” character – a kind of angrier Larry David who scowls at people who walk too slowly or stand up in front of him at the match. And who knows – maybe that was the moment when he felt he was going stale, that he was sinking helplessly into cliche, and that it was time to escape the TV studio and have another go at management.
But having now worked very successfully in media for a few years, he should have begun to appreciate the opportunities his profile brings. Fame is currency. He’s still only 50 years old – seven years younger than Donald Trump was on the first season of The Apprentice. Boris Johnson’s path to Downing Street led through guest appearances on Have I Got News For You.
Now Gary Neville is taking a leap into the public sphere beyond football. There are other avenues for ambition beyond the comparative dead end of football management. Instead of worrying about repeating himself, maybe the time has come to evolve.
