Top 5 Players Who Had Rifts with Sir Alex Ferguson

#2 Roy Keane

Roy Keane had quite a temper

One of the greatest mysteries of Manchester United’s locker room would be how in heaven Sir Alex managed to work with Roy Keane for this long a time. As all know it, Keane was a fiery character and had a dangerous personality.

The Irishman could be the angriest player to have ever stepped foot on the football ground and his performances benefitted from it. Keane was a great midfielder for Manchester United and an inspirational leader.

He took no nonsense from his players and demanded performances of the highest quality every time. As Ryan Giggs had said it, every training session with Roy Keane was like preparing for a cup final. He wanted the team to play with high intensity.

He had the ability to drive the team forward and it was crucial to the numerous injury time winners that Manchester United scored over the years. Two similar characters hardly ever work together and naturally, Fergie had a rift with the captain too.

Actually, it all started when Manchester United were preparing for the upcoming season at a training camp in Portugal. Keane had issues with the assistant coach Carlos Queiroz and said that Carlos was not doing enough to maintain the welfare of the players in that pre-season tour.

Then Keane provoked team members such as Gary Neville who called up Fergie and told that the players were not happy with the training methods. After this, Keane gave an interview to MUTV in which he criticized the youngsters of the team, John O’Shea, and others after the team’s loss to Middlesborough.

Keane said that many players were taking their place in the team for granted and were not giving expected performances. Fergie was furious with this incident, as he wanted to save the youngsters from this kind of negative influence.

According to the manager, Keane had managerial ambitions. He wanted to take over the team and Fergie eventually sent him off to Celtic in 2005. In this way, the gaffer maintained his authority over the team and did not let the captain have any more influence over the young players.