Micah Richards has revealed the real reason former Spurs midfielder Jamie Redknapp faced “the wrath” of Roy Keane on Sky Sports earlier this season.
Redknapp and Keane clashed on air as they disagreed over the quality of the Tottenham squad as Keane claimed top sides in the Premier League “wouldn’t touch” any Spurs player beyond Harry Kane and Son Heung-min.
Redknapp pointed to Spurs underachieving this season with Jose Mourinho still possessing a “strong squad full of internationals in every department”.
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Something which Keane disagreed was a guaranteed mark of quality, Keane responded: “Playing for your country doesn’t make you a top player. If you can trap the ball you can play for your country these days…
“If you don’t play for your country these days you are a bad player. It doesn’t guarantee anything.
“Which one of this Tottenham team now would get into Liverpool, Manchester City or the Chelsea team? You wouldn’t touch any of them. Son and Kane – outstanding – but the rest of them you wouldn’t touch.”
Redknapp was visibly annoyed by Keane’s reaction to his comments, hitting back: “Alderweireld would get in the Man United team right now.
“You’re right that the goalkeeper is not good enough and the two right-backs they’ve signed, no, I don’t trust (Serge) Aurier or (Matt) Docherty…the back four isn’t good enough but (Sergio) Reguilon is as good a left-back as there is in the country.”
But Keane responded by asking: “Is that why Real Madrid let him go?”
Keane added: “I expect them to be in the top seven or eight but the idea that Spurs automatically should be in the top four, if you analyse the players…they say (Jose Mourinho) is chopping and changing but he’s chopping and changing for a reason – he can’t trust them.
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“We talk about (Gareth) Bale and Bale came on last week and made a difference. What did he do? He put in a corner. He’s come in to do big things and get them back in the top four but he can’t get in the team.
“I’m sick of talking about Dele Alli. What do we think is going to happen with this kid? We look at stats from three years ago. He’s lost the hunger. He’s lost the eye of the tiger. He’s not going to get Tottenham back to the top four.”
And Richards thinks Keane was more angry than usual as he turned up an hour later than normal to start the show.
Richards said on the Match of the Day: Top 10 podcast: “He was driving down to London, but he was late.
“He normally gets there an hour or an hour and a half before, but he was stuck in traffic and he got there 20 minutes before going on air and you could see his hair was all ruffled, along with his suit.
“Jamie just got his anger because he was an hour later than he was supposed to be and he got the wrath!”
On working with Keane, Richards added: “Roy’s a legend of the game and when I’m initially going to work with someone I don’t get nervous – I never get nervous – but you’ve got respect for people and that’s the way it should be. I’ve seen his clips and he used to destroy people left, right and centre.
“The first clip that did the rounds was where I said I’d burst on the scene as a defender, that’s the one that went viral, and he said he didn’t know any defenders that had burst on the scene.
“I said, ‘hold on, hold on, I’m the youngest ever defender for England, won the Premier League and won the FA Cup’ and at that moment he was like ‘OK’ – I earned a little bit of his respect.
“After that I just loved working with him because I can never compete with Roy Keane as a player, or his medals, but I can make him feel uncomfortable on camera, and that’s my strength.”