Roy Keane's frustration with Manchester United reached new heights after their embarrassing 4-1 defeat to Newcastle. The former United captain, who is known for his rants against the team he captained from 1997 to 2005, found a new high pitch during a dressing down on Sky.
Keane's Rant
Keane was particularly annoyed by Newcastle's third goal, scored by Harvey Barnes. He said, "Barnes is brilliant, take nothing away from Barnes, but someone's got to lunge at him, someone's got to tackle him. They gave a goal away at Forest two weeks ago – someone running through the middle – tackle him!"
Keane's voice got higher as he continued, "Tackle him, lunge at him, do something, how can someone run through the middle and not get touched? United have been sloppy in possession. A player can slip but you're part of a team and if you make a mistake you hope one of your teammates covers for you but no one's covering each other on this United team."
United's Struggles
Even with injuries to other centre-backs Matthijs de Ligt, Johnny Evans and Lisandro Martinez, very little is changing at United under Ruben Amorim. The Portuguese has 12 wins, nine draws and 11 defeats since joining the club in November, and even he couldn't find any positives from the loss.
Amorim said post-match, "It's a bad day for us, clearly they were better than us. We made a lot of mistakes that helped the opponent get more confidence to score more goals. We need to focus on the next one, analyse this one and move fast to the next one – that is really important for us."
Amorim's Stubbornness
Part of Amorim's struggles at United has been his stubbornness, sticking to his principals of a 4-3-2-1 formation when he doesn't have the players to fit it. Another of his key tenets throughout his career has also been taking the blame for his players' failures, but that seemed to have abandoned him when he dropped Andre Onana from his matchday squad.
Explaining the move post-match, Amorim said, "Sometimes a player needs to be pushed and put [on] again to play and sometimes the player needs to disconnect. It was my choice, I left him at home because every time he goes to the bench the cameras would go to him."
He added, "He was on the bench but not playing but was feeling the pressure and feeling the moment, so for me it was one thing or another – it was my choice."
The Beautiful Game
The beautiful game is not so beautiful when your team is getting thrashed 4-1. United need to sort themselves out or they'll be facing more embarrassing defeats like this one. Keane's right, they need to tackle, lunge, do something – anything – to stop the opposition running through them like a hot knife through butter.
