Was Roy Keane overrated?

TheGhost said:
Scholes not as good as they bang on about. Beckham definitely over rated. Keane? Nah
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Those made up quotes about Scholes from Pele etc are fucking hilarious, so much so that they have become to be believed as fact. Try and find the source for them and you won’t be able to.

As for Keane, he was a better player than I think people are giving him credit for but it’s true he’ll be remembered for his ugly side.

I like him, reminds me of my old man.
 
Kippax Street 1880 said:
I've always thought that myself, Shame Andy Morrison was on the bench as he wouldn't have stood for it.
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At Wembley last June walked straight past Andy. He was talking to somebody with him, obviously in a good mood. I didn't think of bothering him. He is quite some unit, I can tell you.

Keane was a good player. He was just what United needed at that time. Unwillingly, I find myself listening to him with somewhat more respect than nearly all the other pundits. Also like to replay that clip of him reacting to Villa in their dressing room, with Richards pissing himself laughing. His face is a picture, always cracks me up.
On the pitch, though — a thug. Good footballer, but a thug. I'd like to have seen him matched against our own NDJ. Nigel could put it about a bit, too.
 
Keane is possibly most comparable to Declan Rice in today's game perhaps. Football was different in the 90s and midfielders were expected to get box to box. Keane probably had the best engine in the game. I remember the FA Cup final against Liverpool where at 1 stage Keane pressed the Liverpool players from in his half all the way back to the goalkeeper by pressing every opposition player that the ball was passed too.

Again in the 90s, the DMs role was to act like a wall in front of the back 4 and Keane alongside Vieira was arguably the best in the world at this facet of the game

Keane was also the DM playing on the half turn and he'd show good awareness and typically pick a forward pass quickly. Not Xabi Alonso, or Rodri but probably. In his own era Vieira was a far better dribbler with elite close control but Keane made what he had work.

Beckham is massively underrated now by people who get turned off by his image, probably the best crosser of the ball I've seen, his defensive stats as a winger saw him cover the most amount of ground in the game at the time he was in his prime. Impressive amount of goals and assists, look at some of the stats just from the PL:

96/97 - 8G 8A
97/98 - 9G 13A
98/99 - 6G 11A
99/00 - 6G 15A
00/01 - 9G 12A
01/02 - 11G 12A
02/03 - 6G 8 A

For the record when he went to Real, they had him playing as a DLP pretty much as they Figo on the right wing. And they sold their world class DM in Makele. Zidane asked 'how can you win if you take the engine out of the car'?

Now I did absolutely hate them like yourselves at the time.
 
There's a huge amount of shite written in these threads. If what is in this thread is to be believed, United's entire four man midfield was a load of shite when they won the treble in '99. Roy Keane, like Paul Scholes, like Ryan Giggs, like David Beckham, was an extremely good football player.
 
Cellarite said:
There's a huge amount of shite written in these threads. If what is in this thread is to be believed, United's entire four man midfield was a load of shite when they won the treble in '99. Roy Keane, like Paul Scholes, like Ryan Giggs, like David Beckham, was an extremely good football player.
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Don't like saying it — but that is the unvarnished truth.
Although this is not the question, I firmly, blue specs off, consider that our treble team was better than theirs. We had a fairly benign run in the F.A. Cup (including the final! although Chelsea followed by Arsenal in the early rounds) but nothing but heavyweights in the Champions League. And in the league we had Arsenal breathing down our neck, until they finally cracked. Anyway, yes, that was an excellent United midfield. They also had reliable keepers, by and large, Barthez being the exception.
 
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He can be seen as both a very good player and a bully on the pitch, towards everyone on it,including his own team players.He was the perfect embodiment of Slur Alex's character - on the field of play.
 
WEMBLEY76 said:
He can be seen as both a very good player and a bully on the pitch, towards everyone on it,including his own team players.He was the perfect embodiment of Slur Alex's character - on the field of play.
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Keane was a midfield destroyer and great leader. More like Nigel De Jong than Zidane. He was crucial for United at the time. But he was not a great footballer. Didn’t score or even assist many goals. They would not have won the treble without him though.
 
Lovebitesandeveryfing said:
Don't like saying it — but that is the unvarnished truth.
Although this is not the question, I firmly, blue specs off, consider that our treble team was better than theirs. We had a fairly benign run in the F.A. Cup (including the final! although Chelsea followed by Arsenal in the early rounds) but nothing but heavyweights in the Champions League. And in the league we had Arsenal breathing down our neck, until they finally cracked. Anyway, yes, that was an excellent United midfield. They also had reliable keepers, by and large, Barthes being the exception.
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By any objective measure our Treble team was demonstrably better than theirs, but Keane was a top class player. Any suggestion to the contrary equally doesn’t bear any objective scrutiny.
 
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