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Former Ireland defender was on the end of a few Keano tongue-lashings but he admits he fell into the trap himself of barking at his Palace colleagues

DAMIEN DELANEY “learned to live with” Roy Keane’s verbal grenades before realising he was guilty of launching his own.

The former Republic of Ireland defender was regularly in the line of fire when he played for Keane at Ipswich.

Delaney felt ‘picked on’ but refused to let it affect his football and still made Keane’s (below) starting XI’S more often than not.

But Delaney has revealed how in the latter stages of his career, ex-crystal Palace boss Alan Pardew had to pull him aside and demand that he stop bawling out team-mates.

“All the changing rooms I was involved in had massive characters,” said the now retired former Cork City and Waterford defender. “When I was young , I was told to sit there, shut up, train and go home. You tried not to be noticed.

“It was a time when you could say what you felt to a team-mate, if you felt it was needed. You might even have a fight, but you would laugh about it later.

“But as I was coming to the end of my career, if I felt someone wasn’t pulling their weight I would really have a go at them.

“I wouldn’t hammer someone for their ability, it was just if I didn’t think they were putting in the shift they should be.

“Alan Pardew called me into his office one day and just looked at me. He said, ‘You’re becoming the problem!

“He said, ‘I’m with you because I see where you’re coming from as I played in an era where players could do that, but now I’ve players complaining about you’. I was like ‘What!’

“But he said that you have to accept players for what they are and that some people are moody.”

And during an interview for Benetti Menswear, Delaney suggested that is why Keane has yet to land another job in management.

“Managers don’t lose their tempers any more because players don’t respond to it, from what I have seen,” he added.

“If you’re losing your temper, nine times out of 10 they go the other way and just throw the towel in and that’s the way the world has gone.”

Delaney, 38, accepts that his fellow Corkman Keane adopted the bad cop role for a good reason – he clearly felt it would work.

“He managed the way he thought he was supposed to,” he said. “I’ve no bad feelings towards him but he used to come after me on a fairly regular basis.

“Sometimes I thought he must absolutely hate me. He used to come after some fellas on a Monday morning and they wouldn’t be seen for three or four weeks having been sent off to the under-21s or something.

“He never did that to me. He used to pick on me, but come Friday I’d be in the team. I’d be sitting there going, ‘What? He told me I was the worst player he had come across.

“But you learn to live with it and I presumed he picked and choosed who to have a go at because he thought they could deal with it.”