Strictly business

The interview is arranged for the Marriott Hotel, once the Four Seasons near Manchester airport; the hotel that was his first home when he joined United in the summer of 1993. He hated those weeks of room service, rubbish television, solitude and being Britain's "most expensive footballer". It wasn't the hotel's fault and on these once-in-five-year occasions when he agrees to an interview, this will be the venue. His allegiance to old places is matched by devotion to old habits. The interview is timed for 2pm but he will here before then. As sure as others are late, he is early. A room is booked the day before and I am changing into fresh clothes when there is a knock. It is 1.40pm, 20 minutes before the appointed hour. Can't be him. "Who's there?" No answer. It's definitely him. Shirt buttoned, trousers fastened, you open the door. "Roy, you actually caught me with my trousers down," you say, by way of apology. "Isn't it usually the other way round?" he says, smilingly. This meeting is no accident. He wanted it. Things on his mind. A week earlier, he was working for ITV at Manchester United's Champions League tie against Basel in Switzerland. Before the game he watched a pre-recorded interview with United's 19-year-old England international Phil Jones and sensed Jones didn't quite grasp the seriousness of United's predicament. "Too relaxed," Keane said. "Maybe they're thinking they're going to get through because they are Man United." He sees it like this because he still is Man United. In Basel, United couldn't get the draw they needed. What had seemed a simple qualifying group had undone them. Keane felt 38-year-old Ryan Giggs was United's best player and that the younger players hadn't heeded the warnings of disappointing draws against Basel and Benfica in earlier matches at Old Trafford. Reality check "People have talked about the young players," he said in his post-match analysis. "You've had Jones, [Chris] Smalling, [Ashley] Young coming in, everybody building them up, but they've got a lot to do. It's a reality check for some. I'd be getting hold of some of those lads, saying, ‘You'd better buck up your ideas'." Minutes later a journalist asked Sir Alex Ferguson what he thought of Keane's criticism. "I don't know why you are bringing this up from a television critic," Ferguson said. "That's nothing to do with it. Roy had an opportunity to prove himself as a manager and it's a hard job." Ferguson's response betrayed annoyance at the question but it also spoke of a strained relationship with his former skipper. Programme notes In his programme notes for the game against Wolverhampton Wanderers three days later, Ferguson returned to the criticism prompted by the failure in Basel. "We will take a lot of stick from critics and even from people we thought were perhaps on our side but we mustn't dwell on that either," he wrote. Keane saw this as an attempt to portray him as the enemy. He comes to this hotel room knowing exactly what he wants to say. Though mildly irritated, Keane would have let Ferguson's Wednesday evening comments pass. Saturday's dig was a different matter. "There was an angle there of trying to get the fans to look differently at me and I thought, ‘I can't have that'. I thought it was ridiculous. "I can hardly do the TV wearing the United scarf and if me telling the young players to pull their socks up is such a hard thing to accept, I ask myself what kind of world are we living in. I also said the other night that the senior players have to lead the way, set the tone, whether it's training, how you prepare for a match, how you behave around the hotel. "But that doesn't mean you shield the young players who are international players, who are in around Manchester doing whatever they're doing, but there seems to be this thing, ‘How can you criticise a young player?' These same young players are going to try to win the European championship for England this summer. Do we wrap them up in cotton wool?" He reaches for a jug of water on the table, fills the two glasses and moves back to the subject of Ferguson and why he believes his ex-manager wished to portray him as a traitor. "I know how this works. When I spoke to Alex about management before I left United, the two words he always used were power and control. "I understand power and control over people inside the football club, understand that 100 per cent. But not power and control of the people who have left the club. He's trying to have power and control over me but I left Man United six years ago. So I just thought, ‘You didn't need to go there', but having said that, it didn't surprise me." On November 18, 2005, he left Manchester United after a falling out with Ferguson over an interview given to MUTV about the team's performance in a 4-1 loss at Middlesbrough. Keane was critical of teammates and at a subsequent meeting he took offence to assistant coach Carlos Queiroz lecturing him on loyalty, reminding the Portuguese he was the one who had run off to Real Madrid when the chance came. United's statement on Keane's departure talked of a parting "by mutual consent", a bow to PR that fooled no-one. He was being shown the door. The statement prepared by the club thanked him for "11-and-a-half years at the club" when he had in fact been 12-and-a-half years at Old Trafford. United paid up his contract but couldn't buy his silence. In an interview almost two-and-a-half years later with Tom Humphries of the Irish Times, Keane spoke for the first time about his leaving of Manchester United. His hurt at the manner of the exit was still apparent. "The day I left United, in hindsight, I should have stopped playing. I lost the love of the game that Friday morning. I thought football is cruel, life is cruel." He accused people at United of not being honest with him. Threat of legal action That interview was published on April 5, 2008. Ten days later Keane received a letter from Brabners, Chaffe, Street, solicitors acting on behalf of Manchester United. It was a standard legal threat: unless there was a full retraction and apology, in terms approved by Manchester United, and an undertaking not to make any further criticisms, the club would consider all of its legal rights and remedies. United threatening to sue him: Keane was furious. "I count my blessings to have played for Manchester United. All of my family are United fans and I don't have any bitterness towards Man United, please let's make that clear. But when you get a letter from lawyers representing the club through your letterbox, you wonder what it was all about. "I rang David Gill [United's chief executive], ‘What's this all about, David?' I did an interview to promote Guide Dogs for the Blind, I touched upon my leaving United. ‘What's it all about', I asked David." Without Gill needing to tell him, Keane knew. The letter wouldn't have been sent unless Alex Ferguson wanted it sent. United's lawyers followed up the original correspondence with repeated requests for the apology, but were told by Keane's representative, Michael Kennedy, that there would be no apology. Eventually, Brabners, Chaffe, Street went away. Perhaps, you suggest, that in the end the differences with Ferguson were natural, two strong personalities colliding. That when you compare his relationships with the two great managers of his professional career, Brian Clough and Alex Ferguson, he simply had more affection for the former? "Yeah, I think that would be right. I think I liked his personality probably a bit more. "I think you can be a great manager but you can also be a good man. I think it's allowed."