Roy Keane is turning punditry into The Jeremy Kyle Show and becoming a laughing stock, claims former team-mate Tony Cascarino
Tony Cascarino has launched a brutal character assassination of Roy Keane, labelling his former Republic of Ireland team-mate a ‘bully’ and a ‘laughing stock’.
Keane hit the headlines in recent days after a string of shocking outbursts at a Cadbury event in Dublin.
The Manchester United icon reignited his feud with Sir Alex Ferguson, taking a swipe at the legendary manager’s family, and also dug out Irish trio Jonathan Walters, Harry Arter, and Stephen Ward.
And Cascarino, who spent eight years alongside the former midfielder with his country, suggests there has always been an unpleasant side to Keane’s personality.
“There’s a lot of stuff I can’t say that happened in the Ireland team,” Cascarino told talkSPORT. “There were things that happened that have never been said.
“There’s a lot of frustration, anger, bitterness, and that’s why he can be very spiteful and cynical in what he says.
“He can be jovial and funny, but he rarely gives that. He studies you and you’ll say something which he will hang onto, then it can go a year, and it will come out.
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“It’s like a machine gun of verbals towards you. He looks for confrontation and he likes to intimidate and bully.
“He used to love testing you in training. Instead of feeding a pass, he would ping it at you and as if to say, ‘Control that, if you can’.”
During the event in Dublin, Keane reserved a particularly personal attack for Walters following their fall-out with the national team earlier this year.
The 35-year-old revealed in a May television interview his heartache of losing his mother when he was just 11, along with his brother last year.
And Keane mentioned that interview, saying: “He talks a good game.
“Imagine if he’d won a trophy. He goes on the TV about how he was harshly treated by me. He’s crying on the TV about his family situation.”
And Cascarino says Keane’s punditry is beginning to feel like the Jeremy Kyle Show.
"I just don’t get Roy on all this," the talkSPORT host added. "He loves to point the finger and I just wish he’d take his foot off the pedal with everything he’s saying.
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"He’s become a bit of a laughing stock in football. We’re all looking at Roy and thinking, ‘Really? Why are you so vocal on so much stuff about everyone else?’
"He’s turning punditry into the Jeremy Kyle show.
"When you see him on TV, he's not analysing games, he's just dishing people."