O’Neill labels Ireland No.2 Keane ‘the werewolf of Manchester’
ROY KEANE has made a name for himself over the years for his fiery temperament and snarling approach to opponents on the pitch and journalists off it, but the Republic of Ireland assistant manager has now been labelled “the werewolf of Manchester” by Martin O’Neill.
Donning a grisly beard during the national side’s time in France for the European Championship, the former Manchester United captain has taken some stick from defender John O’Shea and boss O’Neill over his appearance.
When asked whether he and Keane played a “bad cop, worse cop” routine, O’Neill fired the first silver bullet. “I was wondering how long it might take before we’d get a question on Mr Keane,” the former Celtic manager said. “He’s fine – we locked him up about 25 minutes ago.
“And I don’t think we’re going to allow him to come here. He’s caged in at this minute as his beard gets longer, and uglier. But, he’s good.”
O’Neill then turned to O’Shea and asked: “Would you agree, John?”
The Sunderland skipper answered: “Yes, I agree, yes. Definitely the beard is getting slightly longer,” before O’Neill added: “He’s the werewolf of Manchester.”
Returning to matters on the pitch, O’Neill admitted that Italy, who beat Sweden 1-0 yesterday to keep up a 100 per cent record, will probably top the group, but no matter what might and might not happen in the other matches, his men in green need to beat the highly-fancied but underperforming Belgians.
“We were able to see the second half when we got off the plane and into the hotel,” O’Neill said.
“A late goal by Italy has obviously given them six points on the board, so I’m not exactly sure about the permutations at this minute, we will have enough of those tomorrow evening.
“We have to look at ourselves against Belgium. Whatever the outcome of tomorrow night’s game, it looks as if we have to win a game now.”
O’Neill also confirmed that Jon Walters will miss the game against Belgium with the Stoke City striker nursing an Achilles injury.