Roy Keane was in typical form yesterday during his media briefing. He took a shot at a certain manager's "good media spin" and later produced a comical exchange with a Danish journalist, as reported by Irish Examiner.
The Ireland assistant manager was asked if he had been in touch with his former Man Utd colleague ahead of the two-leg playoff against Schmeichel's native Denmark. "No, no, no," answered Keane.
When further pressed about what he would say to Schmeichel had the two conversed, Keane was adamant he would have little to declare.
I’d say fuck all to him. What do you want me to say to him? Is he playing? He’s not playing, no. I’d say nothing to Peter. What could I say to him?
The journalist then suggested that perhaps old teammates "stay in touch".
I don’t keep in touch with Peter. The last time I saw Peter, I’d say it was about a year and a half or two years ago and we had breakfast together in a hotel in London and it was nice. We had a good chat.
Listen, I’ve huge respect for all my ex-team-mates. Through the good and bad times. He started it. He said it himself, he held his hand up, he said he started it. I think head two pints and got a bit brave, y’know?
The "bad times" to which Keane refers is a major row which he had with Schmeichel while they were Man Und teammates.
He described the incident in his most recent book:
I had a bust-up with Peter when we were on a pre-season tour of Asia, in 1998, just after I came back from my cruciate injury. I think we were in Hong Kong. There was drink involved.
There'd been a little bit of tension between us over the years, for football reasons. Peter would come out shouting at players, and I felt sometimes he was playing up to the crowd: 'Look at me!' "He said: 'I've had enough of you, It's time we sorted this out.' So I said 'Okay' and we had a fight. It felt like 10 minutes.
I woke up the next morning. I kind of vaguely remembered the fight. My hand was really sore and one of my fingers was bent backwards. The manager had a go at us as we were getting on the bus, and people were going on about a fight in the hotel the night before. It started coming back to me - the fight between me and Peter. Anyway, Peter had grabbed me, I'd head-butted him - we'd been fighting for ages.
At the press conference, Peter took his sunglasses off. He had a black eye. The questions came at him 'Peter, what happened to your eye?' "He said 'I just got an elbow last night, in training'. And that was the end of it.
Never change, Roy.
