• Premier League

Keane opens up on bust-ups with Ferguson and Schmeichel

Roy Keane has revealed in his latest autobiography how a huge bust up with manager Sir Alex Ferguson and his assistant Carlos Queiroz led to his departure from Manchester United.

Keane also told how he left team-mate Peter Schmeichel with a black eye after headbutting the goalkeeper.

An angry man

Roy Keane has settled a few more scores in his new book © Getty Images

• After Roy Keane's book went on sale early, 16 of his top targets have been revealed to include Sir Alex Ferguson, Peter Schmeichel and Manchester City's players. Even Paul Scholes doesn't go unscathed as ESPN identifies what and who 'Keano' is angry about.
• For the full story click here

'The Second Half', which is released later this week and reported in The Guardian, details how the fall out happened during a pre-season trip to the Algarve and eventually resulted in his contract being ripped up and a move to Celtic.

The former United captain describes his rage with the pair in detail, and how his position at the club became untenable. Keane explained how the situation with Queiroz quickly escalated: "He was just on my right shoulder; how I didn't f***ing hit him again - I was thinking, 'The villa in Portugal, not treating me well in training - and he just used the word loyalty to me'.

"I said, 'Don't you f***ing talk to me about loyalty, Carlos. You left this club after 12 months a few years ago for the Real Madrid job. Don't you dare question my loyalty. I had opportunities to go to Juventus and Bayern Munich.'"

Keane said that Ferguson then stepped in to try and calm the situation down, but the midfielder snapped at him too: "You as well gaffer. We need f***ing more from you," he said. "We need a bit more, gaffer. We're slipping behind other teams."

He then described how his exit from United came about in 2005.

Keane went on: "I said to Ferguson, 'Can I play for somebody else?' And he said, 'Yeah you can, cos we're tearing up your contract'. So I thought, 'All right - I'll get fixed up.' I knew there'd be clubs in for me when the news got out. I said, 'Yeah - I think we have come to the end.' I just thought, 'F***ing prick' - and I stood up and went 'Yeah. I'm off.'"

But he regrets trying to bury the hatchet later in the week.

"Now I kind of wish I hadn't," he wrote. "Afterwards I was thinking, 'I'm not sure why I f***ing apologised.' I just wanted to do the right thing. I was apologising for what had happened - that it had happened. But I wasn't apologising for my behaviour or stance. There's a difference - I had nothing to apologise for."

The fight with Schmeichel happened in the summer of 1998.

"I had a bust-up with Peter when we were on a pre-season tour of Asia, in 1998, just after I came back from my cruciate injury. I think we were in Hong Kong. There was drink involved," he explained. "He said, 'I've had enough of you, It's time we sorted this out.' So I said 'Okay' and we had a fight. It felt like 10 minutes. There was a lot of noise - Peter's a big lad.

"I woke up the next morning. I kind of vaguely remembered the fight. My hand was really sore and one of my fingers was bent backwards.

"The manager had a go at us as we were getting on the bus, and people were going on about a fight in the hotel the night before. It started coming back to me - the fight between me and Peter.

"In the meantime, Nicky Butt had been filling me in on what had happened the night before. Butty had refereed the fight. Anyway, Peter had grabbed me, I'd head-butted him - we'd been fighting for ages.

"At the press conference, Peter took his sunglasses off. He had a black eye. The questions came at him: 'Peter, what happened to your eye?'"

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