2% Villa - Roy Keane

[SoccerHQ]

There was a quote from an unamed player from when Keane supposedly went round to a players house to have it out with him, something about the intensity of Keane in training when it's only Aston Villa we're playing for, not a champions league club.

It stuck with me because it said everything about the joke of a club that we were and the useless twats we employed. The club feels unrecognisable from that time now.

Yeah I remember that. Think the quote actually was "we don't get paid what CL players do so why does he expect us to play like them?" Sounds exactly like something Gabby would come out with.

[KevinGage]

Great player in his day.

And I'm sure he may have rared up on a few of our wastrels back in 14/15.

But his whole reasoning for taking the job seemed a bit off from the outset: just to be in a better position to scout players for Ireland. 

Ultimately, he treated the club with a similar level of contempt than Houllier, Erik Cack, Lescott and the rest.  Fcuk him and fcuk them.

[edgysatsuma89]

Houllier treated us with contempt? I thought he just got ill.

[KevinGage]

Aye. In the sense that from day one (before that, actually) he gave off the vibe that we should be grateful just to have him and phoning it in was enough.

[RamboandBruno]

Aye. In the sense that from day one (before that, actually) he gave off the vibe that we should be grateful just to have him and phoning it in was enough.

Yea and the touching the ‘you’ll never walk alone’ sign with Misty eyes when we played them up there, ffs. Always gave the impression to me he didn’t really want to be there or at that we were a bit beneath him.

[sickbeggar]

From what I've heard of Keane's time at Man U, they put up with him being an @rse because he was a great player, and once he went on the wane they got rid. I doubt that's an uncommon thing to do as the best players do get treated differently. In defence of our players at the time. employing a borderline sociopath as an assistant manager is probably a bad move especially if you go into it with the same mindset as you had when you were a player. You're not going to be working with the standard of players you're used to so you have to adapt your demands which seems to have been a problem with every club Keane has been involved with post playing career. I'm sure Terry had the same problem but he adapted. Having said that, there's no doubt our team at the time would have had the most laid-back manager pulling his hair out. A whole barrel worth of bad apples

[BC Villain]

A long interview here with Gary Neville. I enjoyed it. He talks briefly about his time at Villa,and in retrospect it's hard to disagree with him (soz, forgot to log the time when he discusses us).

It made me quite like him, which is weird. I also tried to revive the old RK thread before starting this one but it's either locked or simply dead.

Talks about Villa from 49.30

[richtheholtender]

Houllier treated us with contempt? I thought he just got ill.

Wasn't it his initial press conference where it became knowledge he knew nothing about us?

[Damo70]

I watched the whole thing and found it an interesting profile of him.

[KevinGage]

He was quoted in French papers and radio over there shortly before the appointment saying "In my opinion, it's a club that finishes 7-12th."

Despite us just finishing 6th for three seasons running and that being viewed as underachievement, by many.

It's not a hanging offence that he didn't have the same affinity for the Villa that he might have had for the other club he was always wittering on about. But as one of the highest paid representatives of our club at the time he should have had a bit more enthusiasm for the job.

We were viewed as dark horses for the league going into that season.  Yet GH spoke as if we were Wigan or similar.

[Bad English]

Well he always was a bit of a knob, was Houllier.

[edgysatsuma89]

Ah fair enough, he definitely gave off a 'snooty' vibe I just didn't know anything to actually back that up. I mean I don't like Alan Tittymarsh but that's literally just because of his face.

[Rory]

I may have my maths wrong, but as I recall, we had 7 points after 5 games when Houllier managed his first game, we then won 8 points in our last 4 under McAlister.

Meaning Houllier took 33 points from 29 games, having inherited a team who had just finished 6th three years in a row, minus Milner, and given £24-30m to spend in January.

I didn't get too worked up about the misty-eyed bullshit at Anfield. I can just about forgive losing to SHA in the League Cup and allowing them the greatest moment in their history. Also, not trying to defend MON leaving when he did, or the shit that followed. But I never felt Houllier really wanted to be here, and I think he did a pretty shit job.

Rather than things suddenly going wrong when we appointed McLeish, I consider the lack of enthusiasm and general downgrading of expectations under Houllier to be very much part of our downward trajectory.

[cdbearsfan]

Agree entirely. Also, the abject surrender to Man City in the cup, when we were in reasonable form and had just beaten them, was unforgivable.

[kippaxvilla2]

You can say what you like about Keane but this sort of fits in with the way things were perceived by a lot of fans at the time. 

Roy Keane on his time coaching at Aston Villa.
Keane has said that some of the players he coached when he was at the club were 'imposters' and 'scumbags.'

The former Manchester United captain told the Overlap Live that some players had a poor attitude and 'didn't train properly' or 'speak to staff properly.'

The Sky Sports pundit, 50, did not identify any of the players, but he unfavourably compared the attitude of some of the Villa squad members to his former teammates at Old Trafford.

"We had a brilliant dressing-room at Manchester United, and you assume it’s the same everywhere, it’s not," Keane said during a live edition of The Overlap in Manchester.

"It’s only when you go to another club and see so-called professional footballers. 'Imposters' I call them.

roy keane punditry

"I went to coach at Aston Villa. Honestly, there were players at the club like scumbags. They would have been scumbags on a building site," he continued.

"They didn't train properly. They didn’t speak to staff properly. Then you wonder why they don't win anything, because they’ve people like you in the dressing-room.

"The strange this is, you turn up on time and train properly and they think there's something wrong with you. No, you're supposed to train like it's the last training session you'll ever have. They're like, 'Nah, not for me'. P***k."