Inside Roy Keane’s final moments as a Man Utd player after heated team meeting
Mikael Silvestre has recalled Roy Keane's brutal departure from Manchester United stating the Irishman's departure was "a disaster" for the club.
A no-nonsense midfielder, Keane was subject to mass criticism after a 4-1 humbling to Middlesbrough in the Premier League in October 2005.
Managed by ex-United assistant Steve McClaren Boro battered the Red Devils at the Riverside Stadium and were 3-0 up by half-time.
Yakubu extended the Teessiders' lead in the second half with Cristiano Ronaldo netting a late consolation to put United on the scoresheet.
Having been outfought, outmuscled, outperformed by the Boro midfield, the writing was already on the wall for Keane.
But the final nail in his coffin proved to be an interview with United channel MUTV in which the Irishman slated no fewer than five of his own team-mates.
Keane was fined £5,000 for his comments by the club whilst United sought to destroy the recording.
The defeat to Middlesbrough proved to be Keane's final game for the Red Devils but Silvestre believes his exit from Man Utd was handled poorly.
Speaking to SportBible, the French defender recollected how the players reacted to being shown the tape recording.
On reflection, should Manchester United have kept hold of Roy Keane? Let us know in the comments section.
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He said: "As players, we knew that Roy was always straight with us and he would treat everybody the same. He said, 'what I told the MUTV guys, I would've said to your face,' so it [the MUTV interview] wasn't an issue for us.
"People would be shocked if they saw the things that were said in the dressing room on the TV.
"But the vocabulary and the way Roy would speak in the dressing room was normal; losing 4-1 as Manchester United and the way we gave up the goals and conceded is what annoyed him the most.
"You could almost blame MUTV for putting him in that position because if you know Roy, he's not going to hold back.
"It was a disaster in the end, but it could've been dealt in a much better way.
"It wasn't nice to see the relationship between Roy, the manager and Carlos Queiroz being ripped apart.
"When you win trophies, you need everyone to be together and there can't be any hard feelings or second thoughts about who you're going to work with or fight for.
"I felt bad to the point that when Roy left the meeting, I was the first one to leave after him about a second later because I wanted to drag him back to the meeting.
"I didn't feel it was the right way to end things, so I followed him to the dressing room, but couldn't get a word out to make him change his mind to go back upstairs to the meeting.
"I just saw him get changed and then he left."
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