Keane Vs Vieira

Who: Former Manchester United and Arsenal captains Roy Keane and Paddy Vieira.

He said what? “I’ll see you out there.”

What happened? Sky Sports have done some questionable things to football – hyping any game involving Bolton for instance. But their insistence on putting cameras in every conceivable angle at every Premiership game pays off big time once in a while.

On a cold Tuesday in February 2005, they stuck a lens up the Highbury tunnel before Arsenal and Manchester United were to take to the field. As Richard Keyes warbled on something about ‘Showdowns’ or ‘Grand Stand Tuesdays’, he was interrupted by shouting coming from the dressing-rooms.

Referee Graham Poll stepped up to see what was the matter with one word being repeated time after time…. “Roy, Roy, Roy”. Patrick Vieira soon appeared from the wall of bodies, sheepishly making his way past his team-mates to be asked by Pascal Cygan and Dennis Bergkamp if he was okay, but before he could answer his eyes shot back towards the other players as Roy Keane stomped his way down through the melee, pointing at the lanky Frenchman.

“I’ll see you out there,” Keane said, then telling Graham Poll he “wasn’t havin Gary Neville” being threatened seen as an easy target.

“Every week you, pretend like you’re a nice guy,” Keane continued before adding another, “see you out there” and a final “tell him to shut the fuck up about it” to Poll.

The Arsenal man remained in stoic silence while Sky couldn’t believe their luck. Here was a midfield battle about to explode; one that had consumed the games between the Premiership’s top two for the guts of a decade. The captains’ traded insults, tackles, victories and even winning goals in several of the games.

They had gone head to head literally a few times, appearing on the peak of boiling over but it was until not until their final league encounter that they let fly… and why? Because Paddy Vieira thought The Neveiller was an easy target.

As Roy Keane explained after the game:

“Basically Patrick Vieira is six-foot four and he’s getting right into Gary Neville, sees him as an easy target and I'm not having it.” Five-foot ten-inch Roy Keane standing up for five-foot ten-inch Gary Neville there.

It was later revealed that in a brilliantly formed piece of rage, Keane had also picked on Vieira’s national allegiances before the game as well. Referring to the Arsenal captain’s charity work in his African birthplace, Keane said “if you love Senegal so much, why don’t you go play for them”? Vieira’s somewhat predictable but fair response was that any man who walks out on his country in the World Cup should perhaps keep his mouth shut on such matters.

It has to be said, the reasons this is picked as one of our Moments in Football are fairly solid. Firstly, the game already had a bit of edge to it before a ball had been kicked or a Neville had been threatened. Earlier that season, United had ended Arsenal’s 49-game unbeaten run with a controversial 2-0 victory at Old Trafford. After Wayne Rooney had dived to gain a penalty, he stuck in the second. Pizzagate followed as, allegedly, Cesc Fabregas threw a slice of pepperoni and cheese at Alex Ferguson… where oh where were Sky then? The lazy bastards.

Then, following the confrontation in the tunnel (Vieira apparently asked Neville if he was “going to kick us again”, a reference to Jose Antonio Reyes’ claim that Neville spent 90 minutes kicking him in the legs during the 2-0 encounter) this game went on to be a classic. United won 4-2; clearly fired up by their captain’s stance, and indeed his decision not to shake hands with Vieira at any stage before the game.

Finally, I watched this game in a superb Dublin pub where the atmosphere was as good as any neutral could’ve hoped for – the Arsenal supporters club upstairs and the Man United-ites downstairs. A pint in hand; when Keane threatened Vieira the place shook.

It was a real moment of football passion, the like of which Jose Mourinho and his idiotic accusations and self-delusion will never get near. People scream at the screen in frustration at his antics, they hollered in anticipation when Keane told Vieira where he’d see him.

If anything, looking back on it now (and you definitely should do on the YouTube link provided), there’s a hint of nostalgia already. Not even two years old at time of writing, things really have changed in England’s top division since. Chelsea have become the most hated team in the land; Vieira has gone to Italy; Keane has retired altogether and now works for Chairman Niall at Sunderland.

Vieira said in an interview some time after the incident that he has “big respect” for Keane due to all the wars in the middle. Somehow the clash of Michael Carrick and Fabregas doesn’t have the same ring to it. It’s not coincidence that both men’s shadows still loom large over their former clubs, they brought out the best in each other so often that the failings of their successors and indeed their loss to the league as a whole is very, very hard to miss.

Go on, watch it one more time…

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JJ Worrall