Alan Shearer has recalled the time Roy Keane was angling for a fight with him after a Newcastle vs Manchester United match, and is confident he would have got the better of the Irishman if punches had been thrown.
Keane was shown a red card in the dying moments of Newcastle’s famous 4-3 victory over the Red Devils in September 2001 after clashing with Shearer.
The Magpies captain had stopped the feisty midfielder from taking a quick throw-in and Keane was not happy, swinging at Shearer and earning himself a sending off.
The former England captain remembers the incident well and the potential for fisticuffs after the match, but believes that would have been no problem if violence had ensued.
‘Yeah, I didn’t like him,’ Shearer said of Keane on the Match of the Day Podcast.
‘I had loads of rucks with him and I wasn’t the only one. It was a throw-in in the far corner where I stopped him taking an early throw. We were beating them at St. James’ and he wanted to take a quick throw-in and he’d been at me all game as he normally was.
‘It was about three of four minutes before the end of the game. I can’t remember exactly what I said, I called him some sort of name. He got the red card and I remember having a little smile and thought ‘I’ve done you a kipper here’. I can’t believe you’ve fallen into that little trap.
‘And I can see him, the steam was coming out of his ears, and then I’m thinking the final whistle goes and I’m thinking do I run straight off? Do I try and get up there because I knew for a fact that Roy would be waiting at the top of the tunnel.
‘So I don’t know, I say thanks and shake hands and what have you and there’s this big commotion going on and I look up and there’s Roy, he’s waiting for me at the top of the tunnel.
‘So it was one of them: “Alright, hold me back, hold me back!” But we couldn’t get together, we wanted to get together and I’d have been alright.’
It is not the first time Shearer has spoken of the clash with Keane, and he has always been confident in his abilities if he had been forced to scrap with the man from Cork.
On the True Geordie Podcast in 2017, the host said to Shearer of the incident: ‘Personally, I think you would have knocked him out.’
To which Shearer replied: ‘Of course I would have.’
Keane received seven red cards during his Premier League career, with only Richard Dunne, Duncan Ferguson and Patrick Vieira being sent off more, with eight red cards each.
Remarkably, in 441 appearances, Shearer only ever picked up two red cards and 41 yellows. Keane picked up 69 bookings.
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