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Roy Keane had a truly incredible time at Old Trafford, being widely regarded as one of the best captains that United have ever entrusted with the armband.
Keane joined United from Nottingham Forest for €8.5 million in 1993, starting his illustrious time in the Red Devils shirt which saw him play an incredible 479 games, grabbing 51 goals and 39 assists, with the Irish hardman also wracking up an insane 93 yellow cards and 8 reds, cementing himself as a man not to mess with.
Throughout his time at United, the 52-year-old was a tremendous box-to-box midfielder, leading the midfield for Sir Alex Ferguson and eventually being promoted to captain where he led the squad to seven Premier League titles, four FA Cups, a Champions League victory and four English Super Cups, including the iconic treble win in 1998/99.
Unfortunately, in 2005, after twelve years at Old Trafford, Keane fell out of favour with Ferguson following the 4-1 defeat to Middlesbrough where Keane controversially appeared on United’s TV channel, ripping apart his then teammates. Appalled by this, Ferguson’s relationship with Keane plummeted, with the Scottish manager vowing the Irishman would never play for the club again, ultimately seeing him transferred to Celtic in January 2006 before he then retired six-months later in July.
Having captained United through some of their most impressive years under Ferguon, it’s no surprise that Keane played alongside some truly world-class players, with the Irishman previously naming his top five most impressive teammates as Mark Hughes, Eric Cantona, Ryan Giggs, Paul Scholes and Denis Irwin, with other honourable mentions like Gary Neville who ultimately succeeded him as captain, Jaap Stam, David Beckham, Ruud van Nistelrooy and Peter Schmeichel.
The Danish goalkeeper however, was not well regarded by the Irishman, with Keane calling him ‘overrated’ and recently expressed his true thoughts on the decorated goalkeeper.
Schmeichel spent eight years at Old Trafford, making 252 appearances for the Red Devils, keeping 112 clean sheets, helping the squad to secure five Premier League titles, three FA Cup titles, an English League cup title, two English Super Cup titles, one UEFA Supercup title and a Champions League title.
Despite Schmeichel being such a key part of United success under Sir Alex, Keane expressed that his rivalry with the legendary shot stopper came from Schmeichel’s reluctance to return the captains armband to Keane when the Irishman returned from injury.
Speaking to The Overlap’s Stick to Football show, Keane explained: “The issue I had with Peter was when I came back from a cruciate [injury], when Peter didn’t want to give me the captaincy back,”
He continued: “The issue I had with Peter was when I came back from a cruciate [injury], when Peter didn’t want to give me the captaincy back,
“But yeah, obviously, I got injured and I came back to pre-season and we were in Scandinavia and the manager said, ‘Well, because we’re in Scandinavia, Peter’s captain for pre-season,’ I’m like, ‘OK, no problem, no big deal.’
“You’d think he’d want to give it back to me. And then when I was captain for the Charity Shield and Peter was upset, I remember the manager had to go with him after the match.”
