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Published 11:56 30 Jan 2015 GMT
Updated 11:57 30 Jan 2015 GMT
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Roy Keane and Jason McAteer clash during in 2002[/caption]
I played with lots of volatile characters and it’s in their nature - you can’t take it out of them. The obvious one is Roy Keane. I always found Roy was very loyal to his team-mates on the pitch. But he was very volatile with his tongue in the dressing room afterwards. He’d say it as it is. A lot of the lads respected what he said. He was very rarely wrong, but I always felt his timing was out. There was a time and a place to say things and sometimes he chose the wrong times to say things.
Stan Collymore was always quite volatile. As footballers and team-mates you’d always look at the individual and think, ‘he's a volatile character, the switch could go at any moment’.
[caption id="attachment_11205" align="alignnone" width="594"]
Diego Costa and Steven Gerrard are pulled apart on Tuesday[/caption]
Costa got away with it, but is he’d have gotten sent off I probably would have said to him in the dressing room, ‘what are you doing? Just wait until the last minute of the game. We’re in the semi-final of the cup here. You could have cost me a chance of getting to Wembley. You could have cost the club a chance.’
So you’ve got to weigh it up. There’s a whole lot of things to add into the equation – who it is, the kind of character they are. Mourinho got involved and protected his player, like any manager would.
Afterwards Mourinho was critical of Jamie Redknapp and Sky. Firstly I think him and Jamie have history. There’s no love lost between the two. I think it’s over the Lampard situation and some things Jamie said about Chelsea last season.
And Mourinho is one who seems to hold grudges. Jamie put himself out there with a comment and Mourinho’s taken the bait and now he’s given him a bit of stick back. Mourinho knows how the media works. He knows sometimes you can’t sit on the fence and you have to say things.
I think if it’s constructive criticism and he has a go back then that’s unfair. We’ve all got an opinion and we’ve all got something to say. But I think if it’s personal a manager has got a right to say something.
But people forget that there’s a bit of history there. That’s probably why Mourinho’s come back and answered. If Jamie Carragher or Graeme Souness come out and said the same thing Mourinho probably wouldn’t have batted an eyelid.Football

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