Keane & Vieira Best Of Enemies

HangTime said:
I've never seen any player held as high a regard by opposition players relative to his profile as Scholes,
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Many players do indeed rate Scholes highly.
I remember R.Ferdinand was asked who the best player at Man Utd is. He answered quickly - Scholesy.

In fact, many players who have trained with Scholes always pick him out as the best all-round player at Man Utd.

Hell, even Fergie asked him to come out of retirement. I wonder how many other players Fergie has asked the same of.
 
G|mp said:
:p
I will always thank him for the inch perfect pass to Giggsy :D
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It was interesting that Keane said that if he'd been playing for Arsenal, he'd have hacked Giggs down. No way would he allow him to run for as long as he did.

And it is strange that arguably the best defence in the World, did allow him to run through them, one by one.
 
I remember Beckham being in the world player of the year and he said something along the lines of "Best player in the world? I'm not even the best player at my club!"

:D
 
sunama said:
It was interesting that Keane said that if he'd been playing for Arsenal, he'd have hacked Giggs down. No way would he allow him to run for as long as he did.

And it is strange that arguably the best defence in the World, did allow him to run through them, one by one.
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Lee Dixon twice.

You've got to remember that Giggs was fresh, everyone else on the pitch was ****ed. Taking nothing away from it though, it was brilliant.
 
Really enjoyed watching the program but I just can't like Keane after he deliberately ruined another players career. Just think that's inexcusable despite everything he achieved in the game. Even when asked about it now he still does n't think it was wrong what he did.
 
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He said he didn't regret the Haaland challenge but he also said he never intended to injure another player - hurt them, but not injure them.

As for him selecting Ince over Scholes. He admitted it was harsh on Scholes but I'm not hugely surprised when I think about it. The type of player Ince was, wasn't too dissimilar to the type of player Keane was and it's something you often see with managers - favoring players that are similar to what they were in their playing days.

I've always enjoyed Keane as a pundit and not just because he gives Fergie ****. He's not full of cliche's and doesn't sit on the fence. He's, often brutally, honest in his opinions.
 
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BaZ87 said:
He said he didn't regret the Haaland challenge but he also said he never intended to injure another player - hurt them, but not injure them.
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This reads like he intended to do serious harm to Haland (from here):
"Keane admitted in his book that he set out to injure Haaland that day: 'I'd waited long enough. I ******* hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you ****.
'And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries. Even in the dressing room afterwards, I had no remorse. My attitude was, **** him.
'What goes around, comes around. He got his just rewards. He ****** me over and my attitude is an eye for an eye'."

Keane should never have been allowed near a football stadium again after his actions, especially after what he said about them in his autobiography.
 
That's open to interpretation. Keane said very openly that he intended to hurt opponents but was also clear that he never wanted to actually injure them. As I said above, he's always comes across as very honest and I'd be tempted to believe him.

As for never being allowed to play again. I'm sure you don't believe that Keane was the first player that intentionally took out an opponent - the difference here is Keane has been up front about his intentions. Does admitting to taking Haaland out intentionally make it any worse than had he lied or simply not commented on the challenge, like many others would have?
 
BaZ87 said:
That's open to interpretation. Keane said very openly that he intended to hurt opponents but was also clear that he never wanted to actually injure them. As I said above, he's always comes across as very honest and I'd be tempted to believe him.

As for never being allowed to play again. I'm sure you don't believe that Keane was the first player that intentionally took out an opponent - the difference here is Keane has been up front about his intentions. Does admitting to taking Haaland out intentionally make it any worse than had he lied or simply not commented on the challenge, like many others would have?
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That's if Keane isn't lying. The way he took Haland out - there was no way he didn't intend to injure him.

There is taking an opponent out and there is running in studs first on an opposition player's knee, off the ball. One is 'out-muscling an opponent shoulder-to-shoulder', or similar, the other is borderline GBH.

It doesn't matter how upfront he was about it - he was and still is an ****hole. I stand by my comment - he shouldn't have been allowed to play again after purposefully ending an opponent player's career.
 
Gerrard, Vieira, Keane - all great players for their respective clubs.
I wouldn't some any one of them is better than the other.

Vieira is probably the most important player to his club, given that since he left them many years ago, Arsenal have failed to win a single trophy.
 
Dabbles said:
That's if Keane isn't lying. The way he took Haland out - there was no way he didn't intend to injure him.

There is taking an opponent out and there is running in studs first on an opposition player's knee, off the ball. One is 'out-muscling an opponent shoulder-to-shoulder', or similar, the other is borderline GBH.

It doesn't matter how upfront he was about it - he was and still is an ****hole. I stand by my comment - he shouldn't have been allowed to play again after purposefully ending an opponent player's career.
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As I said, he comes across to me as an honest person. After all, he openly admitted to intentionally taking Haaland out. I don't think Keane went out with the mindset to put Haaland out for x number of weeks/months. I think, as he said, he went out with the mindset of just wanting to hurt him.

And to be clear, I'm in no way defending Keane's challenge. My point was that there's countless examples of players putting in similar challenges like Keane's however the reason why he's vilified more than others is because he admitted the intent (as well as being more high profile). Had Keane not said anything about the Haaland challenge, it would have been forgot about. Keane's admission that he intended it, doesn't make the challenge any worse than a lot of others though.
 
I was thinking the other day about tackling over the years, you know, how the pundits will say "in my day that wouldn't have been a freekick, never mind a red card". And it got me thinking, how the hell did they keep playing week-in, week-out if there were half a dozen leg-breaking challenges every game?

Take the Arsenal team that won the league in 1991, including the brawl with MU, in the entire season less than 20 players were used, and 3 of those players made 2 appearances or less. Basically most teams would have a core of maybe 14 players who would play the vast majority of games. Arsenal have already used well in excess of 20 players in the league this season and we're not even at Christmas yet, and most clubs will be the same.

What I'm getting at is, even allowing for the fact that in the old days players probably played with minor knocks that would see them ruled out these days, surely if football was such a dangerous game back then there would have been many more genuine injuries that would physically prevent players from playing?
 
HangTime said:
I was thinking the other day about tackling over the years, you know, how the pundits will say "in my day that wouldn't have been a freekick, never mind a red card". And it got me thinking, how the hell did they keep playing week-in, week-out if there were half a dozen leg-breaking challenges every game?

Take the Arsenal team that won the league in 1991, including the brawl with MU, in the entire season less than 20 players were used, and 3 of those players made 2 appearances or less. Basically most teams would have a core of maybe 14 players who would play the vast majority of games. Arsenal have already used well in excess of 20 players in the league this season and we're not even at Christmas yet, and most clubs will be the same.

What I'm getting at is, even allowing for the fact that in the old days players probably played with minor knocks that would see them ruled out these days, surely if football was such a dangerous game back then there would have been many more genuine injuries that would physically prevent players from playing?
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It's a completely different game now than it was back then. All the pundits keep bringing up the speed of the game has increased huge amounts and fitness levels have never been higher.

It's probably the players putting more strain on their body in the modern game being much more of an athlete than 20 years ago imo.
 
Fair comments, I was thinking too that perhaps a lot of players are 'highly strung' these days i.e. they are operating very close to breaking point for longer periods. To use a suitable analogy for this forum, they are overclocked to an unstable level so more chance of crashing.

That said I do think the 'playing too many games' card is overplayed considering back in the day there were more league matches per season, infinite FA cup replays, 2 legs in pretty much every round of the league cup etc. If you look at the MU squad from 1990-91 they had 8 players who played more than 45 matches. Last season, none of the players even got close to that mark.

Heck, even if you take the 08-09 season when they reached the Community Shield final, Super Cup final, World Club final, League Cup final, FA cup semi and CL final (!!!!!!) only three players reached that milestone.
 
It was a great bit of entertainment and it shows how they had so much mutual respect for each other. Fair to say neither team has really replaced these two players since they left Utd & Arsenal respectively
 
I thought the clip of the 2 players standing in the tunnel waiting to go out was interesting to see. Vieira looking over at Keane and smiling, Keane notices and just grins back, you could see from that clip alone just how much they relished the competition and knew what was coming up.

Would have liked them to discuss that clip in the interview just to hear from them directly what was going through their minds at that point.
 
I watched it last night and thought it was very good....what's up with Keane though, a team with no Scholes or Giggs in it?! Bitter much?
 
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