Roy Keane didn’t let Manchester United get too carried away after their 3-0 win over Everton on Sunday evening.
The Reds moved up to sixth place thanks to a much-needed victory at Goodison Park and certain results across the weekend worked in their favour too, with Tottenham Hotspur, Liverpool and Manchester City all dropping points. United are now four points off of Aston Villa in fourth.
Keane was drawn to one particular comment from Erik ten Hag in his post-match interview after the manager weighed in on an exchange between Marcus Rashford and Bruno Fernandes; the latter is the club’s first-choice penalty-taker but he opted to give the ball to his teammate to help boost his confidence amid a goal drought.
Prior to the spot-kick, Rashford’s last – and only – goal of the term came against Arsenal on September 3.
Ten Hag said of the matter: “You see also how great [a] captain Bruno is. See, feel, assess that your teammate needed that goal. He has the confidence in Rashy, who is a good penalty-taker. As a team, you need that leadership that you back each other. We have to go step by step. This is one step.”
Keane reacts to Ten Hag’s post-match comments
The former United captain entirely disagreed with the sentiment though, as he explained to the Sky Sports panel: “He’s giving toffee out there to Bruno for passing on the ball for the penalty – absolute bloody rubbish, absolute rubbish coming out with that.
“Man United are sixth now. If they were sixth a few years back you’d be embarrassed, but obviously, they seem happy with sixth. They have a long way to go to compete with the best teams, City, Liverpool, Arsenal.
“And obviously you’ve got teams like Spurs, obviously Villa, and of course Newcastle [United]. They go to Newcastle next week. We’ll see what United turns up, because that’s what they’re supposed to do, turn up for the big games.”
I’m a long way away so feel fairly safe to say I disagree with Keano here. ( jumps out of skin at ill-timed knock on door).
I think that was a brilliant gesture by Bruno and Ten Hag right to point it up, especially given all the hate for Bruno that’s out there.
It’ll give a boost to Rashford whom I’m expecting to be back to his best now players are coming back in to strengthen us. Nothing about the way he took that penalty suggests lack of confidence.
Keanu just make a pricky statement just to keep those players away from complacency, however, Keane knows what does a Captain need to boost his team mates in times of low morale.