Forest star reveals how Roy Keane took disciplinarian ways to new level at club

Imagine being coached by Roy Keane!

We all know Roy Keane is a stickler for principles and discipline, but this story from his days as a coach at Nottingham Forest is pretty extreme.

Manchester United legend Keane became assistant to Forest manager Martin O’Neill in January 2019, before leaving in the summer of 2019.

Midfielder Ryan Yates, who is still at Forest having been at the City Ground since his younger days, recalled a brutal tale of Keane’s disciplinarian ways, revealing how the Irishman had innovative ways to check whether players had done the hard yards.

Yates, speaking on the High Performance Podcast, said: “He was quiet at Forest, but he just had a ruthless streak in him where you didn’t want to cross him. We’d do mini games and the losing team would have to do press-ups. 

“We came in the next day, walked out for training, Roy just had a look on his face, and just looked super p****d off. He wasn’t talking to anybody.

“He started reading out names, and said: ‘You lot, you didn’t do the press-ups’. He’d looked back at the footage to see how many press-ups people were doing!”

Keane names his ‘best played against’ XI

Earlier this month, speaking at Like At The Marquee in Cork, Keane was asked by host Roddy Doyle to name an ‘against’ XI, and there are some striking omissions. 

He’s previously named his best Manchester United and Premier League XIs, but when asked to expand his thinking to all leagues and competitions, Keane left out some huge names.

Liverpool’s Steven Gerrard made his XI, which was otherwise filled with international superstars.

German Oliver Kahn, in goal for Bayern Munich during United’s famous Treble triumph in 1999, was included, with a back four of Paolo Maldini, Franco Baresi, Ronald Koeman and Lilian Thuram.

Frenchman Didier Deschamps, who did play in the Premier League for Chelsea but made his name predominantly for Juventus, Marseille and France, makes the defensive midfield position, with Hristo Stoichkov, Gerrard, Zinedine Zidane and Gheorghe Hagi in front. Brazilian Ronaldo is No 9.

Keane chose to overlook the likes of Arsenal’s Patrick Vieira (no surprise there!), Thierry Henry, Robert Pires and Dennis Bergkamp, plus Frank Lampard, John Terry and more.