‘I’ll see you out there’.
It’s 10 day years to the day since Roy Keane and Patrick Vieira had their infamous bust-up at Highbury. The pair clashed in the tunnel before Arsenal’s game against Manchester United, when Keane confronted the Arsenal skipper after accusing him of picking on Gary Neville.
Captured live on TV cameras minutes before kick-off, we can hear the row developing at the back of Highbury’s narrow tunnel area, and Keane sounds really wound up.
When the United captain walks to the front to led his team out, he and Vieira have to be separated, with Keane held back by referee Graham Poll. ‘I’ll see you out there,’ the Corkman repeatedly says.
The row was fascinating viewing between two of the most dominant players of their generation. United won the game 2-4, but the clash is much more remembered for Keane and Vieira’s bust-up. and the last in a rivalry that spanned the best part of a decade between the captains of the Premier League’s two best teams.
In 2013, Keane and Vieira took part in a documentary chronicling their rivalry, and the former United captain admitted he confronted Vieira because he singled out ‘weak link’ Neville.
‘I had obviously seen you at the top of the tunnel probably having a go at Gary, and maybe one or two others, and what really annoyed me that night was, again whether I was right or wrong was that you were picking on Gary,’ Keane said about the incident.
‘I was looking at Nicky Butt and I think Wes Brown and I’m thinking you were almost picking on the weakest link so that’s what got my back up that, there were two or three of you ganging up on Gary. Simple as that’.
Vieira said that he was merely sticking up for his teammate Robert Pires.’When we played at Old Trafford his [Neville’s] tackling was flying on Robert Pires and he was doing it on purpose and I said listen, we are not at Old Trafford here, this is Highbury’.
Keane and Viera would only play against each other once more and both had left their respective clubs within a year. It’s fair to say neither club has adequately replaced their former skippers, and there’s since been no rivalry to match, at least not in the Premier League.
