Roy Keane has confessed to shedding tears in his car after his departure from Manchester United before joining Celtic.
His United exit in November 2005 came on the heels of a bombshell interview with MUTV where he lambasted his team-mates following a heavy loss to Middlesbrough. His comments were deemed too incendiary for broadcast on the club’s channel and played a part in the deterioration of his relationship with Sir Alex Ferguson, leading to his exit and move to Parkhead weeks later.
Despite his tough exterior on the pitch, Keane acknowledged that leaving United was an emotional ordeal. On the Stick to Football podcast, presented by Sky Bet, co-hosts Gary Neville, Ian Wright, and Jill Scott shared their own tearful experiences, prompting Keane to disclose: “When I left United, I did cry that morning. Cried in my car.”
This wasn’t the first time the 53-year-old opened up about his emotional response to his United farewell, having previously discussed it in an interview in 2023.
“I think the only time I really cried was when I left United after I had a bit of a disagreement with a few people, but other than that you’re very much in that bubble,” Keane explained during a conversation with Tommy Tiernan. “You’re in the zone. I always say I was in the zone. I used to say to people, and they didn’t quite understand it, I was going to war every week.”
Keane – who subsequently moved to Scotland as a free agent – has been open in the past regarding his breakdown in relationship with Ferguson and his disappointment in how the manner of his exit transpired. “I don’t see how things could have been different with Sir Alex,” he said in a previous episode of the Stick to Football podcast.
“It’s a silly thing to be thinking about that’s not going to happen. I get my anger is obviously a long time ago but the worst anger you can have is the justified anger where you feel – again I feel I hadn’t done anything wrong.
“I was 34, I had a broken foot, and my contract was coming up, it was an easy fix for United to go, ‘Your days are numbered, alright, cheers, thanks a lot’. I’ve seen players leave but I could have left in the summer.
“I had no hang-ups about leaving in the summer, or going, ‘Am I getting another sneaky deal here? Listen, I’m a big boy, I can deal with it’. It was all the way it was done; it wasn’t nice, that’s the bit. Not that I had to leave United, no again, that’s life.”