Soccer Uefa Champions League: As Manchester United took the extraordinary step of burning the tape showing what Roy Keane really thinks about his team-mates, Alex Ferguson's mood could be accurately gauged as he made his way through Ringway airport enroute to Paris and the man from Sky stuck a microphone under his nose. Ferguson went the colour of a ripe tomato before jabbing out a finger and turning away. "That's you finished," he growled.
Ferguson has never had to deal with mutiny on the scale presented by Keane's blistering outburst to the club's in-house television station, an interview so explosive the show's producers, under duress from the club's chief executive David Gill, have destroyed the evidence rather than risk it being leaked. Players and management sat in virtual silence during the flight and it quickly transpired Ferguson is livid with Keane to the point irreparable damage may have been caused to a relationship once considered impregnable.
Keane has felt no need to explain himself, let alone offer an apology, and the 34-year-old is said to be distinctly unimpressed United, in football parlance, bottled it. He was described as being unrepentant about identifying six players - reputedly, Rio Ferdinand, Kieran Richardson, Liam Miller, John O'Shea, Darren Fletcher and Alan Smith - during the pulled MUTV programme, Roy Keane Plays the Pundit. It was just as well, if harmony is to be restored between Keane and his colleagues, his broken metatarsal meant he was not on the trip.
His stance is that he is contracted to speak to MUTV and should be expected to give frank and honest opinions. If others recoil at his observations, tough. In naming and shaming players, however, he has crossed the boundaries of football protocol and, as Ferguson faced the press ahead of tonight's Champions League tie against Lille, he was conspicuously agitated, shouting down any questions and refusing to be drawn on Keane's future.
At first, he used his stock phrase of rebuttal - "I'm nae getting into that" - but relented and, without making a direct reference to Keane, spoke in defence of his younger players. Notably, he declined to defend Ferdinand.
"For some young players, motivation is not something they are used to. They are still learning. They've got the ability and just need to get that resilience and substance of Manchester United teams from the past. But we're asking that of young players who have been at the club only a year or so. It will take time and they're missing the support of experienced players like Gary Neville, Roy Keane, Gabriel Heinze, Quinton Fortune."
Edwin van der Sar has described morale as poor and Ferguson acknowledged for the first time United's supporters had legitimate grievances, with the club 13 points behind Chelsea, licking their wounds from a 4-1 humbling at Middlesbrough.
It was put to Ferguson the supporters feared United were "going backwards" and he replied: "Of course I understand their concerns. They deserve better because they are the most loyal fans anywhere. When I came to the club in 1986 they were the best-supported club in England even though they had not won the league in 20-odd years. I know exactly how they feel. I just hope they know exactly how we feel, too."
Part of his problem, though, is many supporters sympathise with Keane's views. Whether he was right to express them is another matter, but any football person would struggle to argue with his basic allegation that certain players are not up to the task of playing in a team with United's lofty aspirations.
When talk returned to Keane's caustic observations and the team's listless performances, Ferguson was asked where it ranked in the scale of crises from his 19 years at the club. "It's the same as any other time. This is manna from heaven for you press guys. We're front page, back page, middle page, in the comic strip - the lot. I used to get upset about it but the flip side is that our young players know full well what it means to be at this club and hopefully it will make them men. There's such a fascination with what happens to us. We're the biggest club ever, in the planet, the universe. Remember that."
