Eamon Dunphy was speaking on 2FM's Game On show this evening giving his take on the events taking place in Russia, and it didn't take too long for Roy Keane to crop up in conversation, the RTE pundit branding Keane a 'cabaret act' in reference to the former United players' dismissal of England's chances in the World Cup
Dunphy also came down heavy on the Ireland football team arguing that taking in what we've seen at the World Cup Ireland are probably the most 'backward football nation in the world right now'.
This criticism then segued into Roy Keane's punditry again, as well as his role in the Ireland team:
Ireland are not playing the same game as every other nation, small and large. We're playing stone age stuff, it's an embarrassment, I don't know how Roy Keane can actually go on television and open his mouth. Because someone has only to say 'you're assistant manager or assistant coach in the team in the world that plays the worst football.'
Alan Cawley then posited that Keane was always playing up to the 'smart arse comment' on ITV, to which Dunphy agreed:
He has become a caricature and Alan is totally right. I watched ITV the other night because he was on it, on the Colombia Poland game and in terms of insight, he offered nothing. At half time when the analysts do their job, 'this is why something is working, this is why something isn't working'... there is no analysis there is just smart arse remarks and 'ripping Carlos Queiroz's head off or some such thing, having a go at the English, there's no intelligent analysis, I don't think he knows much about the game. Not all the great players were good judges of the game, they didn't know what was going on.
Dunphy clearly had an axe to grind as he further eviscerated Keane's analysis before stating that his lack of insight is worrying given the role he has with the Ireland football team:
I just watched (Keane) as an exercise to see what he'd offer, and what he offered was nothing. Absolutely nothing. And if you look at Didi Hamann, John Giles, Liam Brady all these people who have worked here, people like Gary Neville on Sky the knowledge is there you can see it, you're wiser after you've watched them about what's going on. With Keane you get nothing except for a kind of 'I should have ripped Carlos Queiroz's head off. So he has become a joke in my opinion the biggest joke is of course is the team that he has got influence with can't play at all.
Dunphy finished his broadside on the Ireland assistant manager by claiming that nothing happens on the Ireland training pitch and 'certainly nothing happens with Keane, only he puts the cones out and give the press conference.
Ouch.
You can listen back to the entire segment here.
