Stupid game really, this soccer lark. Gary Neville referred to it as a “donkey derby” at one juncture of the second half as Manchester City and Manchester United plodded about and found it hard to put two passes together and we could only imagine Roy Keane looking underneath his studio chair for a grumpy Grinch costume.
Hey presto, the mood was suddenly transformed. Okay, so Keano didn’t have any fancy Santa Claus costume after the unlikeliest of wins for his old Red Devils but there was certainly a sea change in his vibes compared with what had gone before.
Indeed, the most interesting part of the match for a long time had been what happened beforehand when United manager Ruben Amorim dropped Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho from the match day squad, apparently by WhatsApp messaging.
Keane had voiced his approval. “He’s obviously seen something he doesn’t like and he has had a look at it, [he’s] had a clean slate since he came in and doesn’t like what he has seen ... their attitude in terms of training, travelling, how they deal with staff. He is putting a marker down to these players,” said Keane.
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By half-time, though, that tone had changed a bit as Keane sought to get his head around the fact United hadn’t even managed a shot on target.
The big talking point between Keane and Micah Richards was the behaviour of Kyle Walker, who dropped to his knees as if he’d been floored by a Tyson Fury punch. Nothing of the sort, in fact, just a little case of Rasmus Hojlund going nearly face to face.
Keane was scarlet altogether for Walker.
“Is that a red card?” wondered Kelly Cates.
[ Kelly Cates set to replace Gary Lineker on BBC’s Match of the DayOpens in new window ]
“This is going to happen in the game, a bit of argy-bargy. But I look at it. How can Walker [fall]? Walker must be embarrassed to go down like that, an experienced player, look at this. I don’t know the guy and I am embarrassed for him,” said Keane.
“He’s better than that,” said Richards.
“Is he? I’m not so sure,” said Keane.
Somehow Neville’s donkey derby turned into a remarkable finish that had Keane changing his tune, with Amad’s winner providing the unlikeliest of comebacks.
“Hopefully it is a start, still in the bottom half of the league and you can’t get too excited. But it is a big one, to beat Manchester City with five minutes to go. The performance wasn’t that great but they found a way to win. At half-time I was agitated a little bit but ultimately you take that. It’ll be a happy dressingroom and you regroup and go again. The manager made some big calls and this almost justifies his decision. Brilliant,” said Keane.
Smiling even?
There was a giddy sense of anticipation from the RTÉ pundits pitchside at the Aviva on Saturday evening for the Investec Champions Cup match between Leinster and Clermont where All Black Jordie Barrett was primed to make his home debut.
Donal Lenihan is always a good man for a yarn and he told us how he’d been talking in Cork to Mike Murphy, who was actually the owner of the farm in north Meath where Smiley Barrett brought his clan – a young Jordie among them – to live for more than a year.
“Meath was the making of him, wasn’t it?” quipped Clare McNamara and there were no arguments, although Jamie Heaslip wasn’t letting ambitions get the run of him when Clare wondered if it was all about ensuring a five-point haul.
“Winning is the only goal,” responded Heaslip of a match that started at such a pace that commentator Hugh Cahill barely had time to drawn breath with, as Lenihan noted, two minutes 50 seconds on the clock before a break came in play.
Another thing worth keeping an eye on the clock for was when would Cahill slip into a familiar phrase of his. It came in the third minute, when he went, “I’ll tell you what ...”. By the 10th minute, he’d said it four times and there’s many the television viewers on couches at home who hold lotteries on how many times it’s uttered during a match.
He doesn’t need what’s become something of a catchphrase. It’s clear and obvious Hugh does his homework and gets across the nuances of the game, even when it’s at breakneck speed and he may be in need of a coffee break, as he good-naturedly alluded to at one point of a frenetic first-half that stalled in the second period.
When it came time for the naming of the man of the match, Lenihan and Bernard Jackman opted for Sam Prendergast. To which Cahill responded, “personally, I’d have given it to Andrew Porter ... but you never asked me.”
And I’ll tell you what, this time Hugh was right.
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