“How hard are you really then?”
Micah Richards has revealed that Roy Keane is not the hardest man in football, despite his reputation as one of the toughest competitors to play the game.
Richards was debating with Gary Lineker and Alan Shearer on the Match of the Day podcast, where they were trying to list the hardest men in football.
Surprisingly, the Man United legend only made it to number five, as many would have expected him to rank much higher in the list, especially after his infamous run-ins with Shearer on the pitch.
However, Richards reveals why he couldn’t put the Irishman any higher than five, and it’s all because of a certain Everton legend.
“I watched some videos because a couple of these are before my time and the reason why he slipped down to number five is because of Duncan Ferguson,” Richards said.
“I was watching clips of Duncan and both Jaap Stam and Roy Keane walked away from a confrontation [with Ferguson].
“I was like, ‘how hard are you really then?’ Everyone did [walk away from Ferguson]. He’s the ultimate hard man because nobody wants smoke with him.
“Roy Keane let me down, to be honest, because everybody talks about him as a hard man.
“He’s nice with me [in their roles as Sky Sports pundits]. You guys [Lineker and Shearer] are legends of the game and Roy is in that category.
“So when you have to work with him, you’ve got respect. I love working with him. I couldn’t compete with him as a player, with medals, but I can make him uncomfortable on camera.”
Keane himself didn’t shy away from the fact that even he would pick and choose his battles, and Ferguson wasn’t a battle that he wanted to pick.
“I used to stay away from him,” Keane once said talking about Ferguson in 2014.
“We were talking about characters earlier and he’s certainly that. He was a top, top player.”
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