‘Players get awards for anything these days.’
Roy Keane tears into Manchester United’s pre-match celebrations as they paraded the Carabao Cup, and handed out individual awards before their FA Cup tie with West Ham.
United beat Newcastle on Sunday, thanks to goals from Casemiro and Marcus Rashford, to bring home the first bit of silverware of the Erik ten Hag era.
They then made time before their FA Cup clash to present Casemiro with an accolade for making the World XI team, and give David De Gea a trophy for keeping a club-record 181st clean sheet.
Harry Maguire and Bruno Fernandes then proceeded to walk around with the cup, showing it off to the fans.
Keane, though, did not approve of so many celebrations taking place before a crucial cup game. “There is no intensity, it is very sloppy, going through the motions,” Keane told ITV at half-time. “Even before the game down pitchside, there was a lot of presentations and players getting awards for anything these days, they just have not turned up.
“The manager of course has taken a gamble making so many changes – he’s got great options of the bench and you still expect United to do the business second half, but nowhere near good, so yeah [I am] a little bit angry.”
West Ham went 1-0 after a sloppy start to the game, but the Red devil’s eventually snapped out of it, and managed to pull off a 3-1 win, but Keane was unhappy with the overall attitude.
“They have got into some good areas and some good pockets, but what I would say is that it’s lazy sometimes when they get in these good positions,” Keane added.
“You have got to get players in the box, look! It is just laziness and players watching, you have got to get yourself in there to get yourself a goal – that is what the good players do, they have a hunger and desire to get themselves into the box.”
“It did feel as though their minds were elsewhere,” Cole said.
“West Ham were finding little pockets, and I don’t think they were at the top of their game, they were playing okay but United in the midfield were not closing people down quick enough, not shifting it and they looked half asleep.”
Related links:
- Roy Keane hits out at Declan Rice”PR” and criticises player’s performance for West Ham
- Roy Keane praises Mark Sykes for making “brave” switch from Northern Ireland to Ireland
- Roy Keane jokingly tells Erik ten Hag to resign after Carabao Cup win
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