[caption id="attachment_68729" align="alignright" width="600" caption="Alex Ferguson with Roy Keane in 2000."]
I think it's fair to say that Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane won't be exchanging Christmas cards this festive season; while Keane is unlikely to send a birthday card to Fergie, who will be 70 on New Year's Eve. There have been a few verbal spats between the Corkman and the Manchester United manager in recent weeks and it came to a head on Sunday when Keane gave a frank interview to the Sunday Times. He has been working as television analyst this season for English station ITV and after United's recent defeat to Basle that saw them go out of the Champions League, he was critical of the United players. But the criticism didn't go down well with Fergie who reminded Keane that he had a few opportunities to prove himself as a football manager. Keane was willing to let those comments pass, but the following Saturday in his program notes for United's home game against Wolves Fergie wrote: ''We will take a lot of stick from critics [after losing to Basle] and even from people we thought were perhaps on our side, but we mustn't dwell on that.''
Those comments riled Keane and the 40 year-old, who spent 12 and 1/2 years at Old Trafford, wasted no time arranging to talk to David Walsh, the Irish-born chief sports writer with the Sunday Times. In a revealing interview Keane told Walsh that he got a letter from solicitors acting on behalf of United after an interview he gave to Irish Times journalist Tom Humphries back in April 2008 in which Roy outlined the background to his controversial exit from Old Trafford in November 2005. The club wanted a retraction and an apology, which they didn't get. He claimed that Fergie's comments in the match program was an effort to "get the United fans to look differently at me."
Since he left the club six years ago Keane has been back to Old Trafford only three times, twice to play in testimonials and once as a pundit for Sky Sports. Keane says that he will not go to Old Trafford, but he cannot get away from football and has been known to go to see his local club Wigan, where he can sit alone in the stand and not have to make small talk with supporters. The Corkman was invited to a recent dinner to celebrate Ferguson's 25 years at Old Trafford, but declined. ''The way it ended, the legal letter, I couldn't have gone and sat there like everything was great; he [Fergie] would have come in and we all stand up and clap. I couldn't do that,'' said the former star.
