Roy Keane, Kyle Walker and the perils of modern punditry

Manchester City defender Kyle Walker has become the latest to draw Keane’s infamous ire and with such criticism increasingly big business he is unlikely to be the last

Sky Sports pundit Roy Keane (Sky Sports)

“How does Mane earn himself a penalty? Well, because he’s up against an idiot.”

Within a few minutes of giving this answer to Dave Jones’ question at half-time, Kyle Walker was trending on Twitter. Partly because of his error in stepping across Sadio Mane for the spot-kick that put Manchester City one down against Liverpool. But mostly because Roy Keane had called him an idiot for doing so. 

If anything, Walker got off lightly. In a discussion after the weekend’s marquee fixture which finished 1-1, Keane had his sights set on Sergio Aguero. “He looked overweight,” said the former Manchester United captain when discussing the Argentinian’s injury-affected appearances this season. “God knows what size shorts he was wearing. He did look really heavy.”

Then again, you’d probably rather be called fat than face the threat of violence that David de Gea’s did when he failed to keep out a Steve Bergwijn effort back in June. “I would be swinging for him!” said Keane with the irrefutable fume of a man having to voice his threats when he’d much rather carry them out.

The week before, he raged against Manchester United’s players after a listless performance against Arsenal. “Ole will lose his job working with this group of players as sure as night follows day,” he predicted, not for the first time ensuring his criticisms did not throw his former teammate under the bus, though he is not the only pundit who does that. When Tim Cahill observed Mikel Arteta was in the better position of the two given his greater understanding of his team’s shortcomings in defeat, Keane simply shouted over him.

It is necessary to point out, especially to those that are too young to remember his playing career which came to an end 16 years ago that, yes, this is what Roy Keane was like on the pitch. The straight-shooting rage, that combustible stare, the standards set confrontationally high allowing him to kick off when they are not met. This has always been him. He says as he would have said and done to teammates and opponents alike. The cheques he is still writing at 49 are at least ones he used to cash.

Yet it is also necessary to ask why. Why is the man sat in the analyst chair the caricature scrapper rather than the hall-of-fame Premier League midfielder, who wedded that raw aggression with nous and technical ability? How have we ended up with the man and not the ball?

Punditry, while lucrative, is hard work. And perhaps the hardest aspect is building your brand. Not everyone has the ability to articulate their knowledge, or the charisma to do so without boring their audience. Not everyone can be a Jamie Carragher, dissecting the game in great detail, or, to be honest, a Robbie Savage. The former leans on his top-flight career far more than the latter.

Keane won the Premier League seven times, and is a Champions League winner - even if he cannot bring himself to take that medal seriously - yet dipping into experiences of being the driving force behind a lot of that success is something we are rarely treated to beyond calls for more desire and physicality in everything he sees. What’s more, his patter sticks out that little bit given mainstream football punditry has become more technical, thanks to more qualitative data incorporated into its analysis.

Is Keane one of the signs of a turning tide? Of an industry pivoting towards the American approach, best characterised by Stephen A Smith, of taking potshots with no regard and seeing what lands? Savage and Chris Sutton are two others who have made the most out of being on the contrarian side of the argument. 

It’s not just criticisms that fuel this model. Rio Ferdinand’s celebrations after Manchester United’s win over Paris St Germain last season, and subsequent pro-Solskjaer rant of an imaginary blank contract, showed that over-the-top positivity can also be done for effect. Likewise, hammed up dismay: Patrice Evra’s post-match analysis of United’s 6-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur was just five minutes of complaining that he did not want to cover United games anymore because it made him sad. 

More and more, what we are seeing reflects the binary nature of football discourse in this country. Red or blue, zonal or man, long or short, Grealish or Mount. Anything in between is just a waste of time. And when you look at the evidence… many agree. 

Type in “Roy Keane” into YouTube and the first results are of scathing put-downs with over a million views each. Videos of him on Twitter pull in four-figure retweets. Evidently, scathing critiques and studio aggression are more popular than poring over players and tactics. The Devil has all the best lines and they clearly do very well on social media. 

To step back for a moment, you wonder if Keane selling himself short actually matters. The gravitas of his career got him into the pundit’s chair, but it’s not what has kept him in it, especially as punditry merges ever more with sport as an extension of its entertainment. It’s not supposed to be Newsnight. 

For those that want the highbrow stuff, it’s not too hard to find. In fact, Sky can point to their regular Monday Night Football clinics, the most recent featuring an engaging four hours with the extremely relevant Mauricio Pochettino, and say they cater to both.

All while their accounts hoover up hit after hit, and their website pushes out links off the back of it. Links that provide the perfect jumping-off point for their news channels. And, cards on the table, for the rest of us in this caper.

By the way, Keane was not wrong in his assessments. Walker's challenge was a bit idiotic, stepping in front of Mane without a clear line to the ball. Aguero has looked a bit laboured. Though laying out De Gea would do more harm than good, the anger Keane might have had toward a consistently underperforming teammate is understandable.

Will there come a time when this version of Keane oversteps? If or when he does, are we, the ones that encouraged him, at fault? Maybe that's a tad melodramatic, but players may wonder why someone who knows what it's like to be in their shoes is firing off forthright yet reductive assessments on them that emboldens those who contribute most to endemic online abuse. Some have already taken great exception to him.

Perhaps Keane could tailor his approach by assuming more sensibility. Would we lose any entertainment if he did? Not much, probably. But when you look at how "successful" he has been over the last few months, with more people consuming football coverage than ever before, why would he?