Roy Keane has defended his goalscoring record for Manchester United by saying “it wasn’t my job”.
The former Republic of Ireland midfielder scored 51 times in 480 appearances for United over 13 seasons at Old Trafford.
He collected numerous trophies for the Red Devils, including seven Premier League titles, and he doesn’t feel at all bad that he didn’t score more goals.
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When asked whether he should have scored more goals at Man Utd, Keane told MNF Retro: “No, absolutely not, it wasn’t my job.
“My job was to make sure we didn’t lose games and won league titles. I scored plenty early in my career, so I thought, ‘I’ve done that bit of the game, I’ll focus on sitting in front of the back four and dictating the game’.
“I scored plenty in training but in matches I left that to the strikers and people like Scholes, Giggs and Beckham, who were keen to get forward.”
On the ruthless goalscoring partnership between Andy Cole and Dwight Yorke, fellow pundit Gary Neville added: “When Yorke signed in 1998 it was after the start of the season and it was a surprise in some ways because I came out of nowhere,” Neville adds.
“We knew Yorke was a good player from Aston Villa, but you didn’t think he would be the one to come into United. I don’t think anybody realised how good a player he was – I never realised how good he was, I knew he was a good player but not to the level he surprised us by when he came into the team.
“Yorke and Cole didn’t hit it off from the start, it took 10 to 15 games from memory. Leicester away sticks in my mind, something just happened that day and after that they started socialising together, getting on off the pitch and a respect between each other developed.
“The thing about that partnership is that neither minded who scored, something you wouldn’t have seen with partnerships involving Ruud van Nistelrooy and Michael Owen, who had to score to be happy.”
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