'My Man Utd team-mate told me to go f*** myself – that's when everything changed'

Roy Keane and Wayne Rooney developed a strong bond during their time at Manchester United – but it was a heated confrontation that initially brought them closer together.

The pair were team-mates at Old Trafford for just over a year, and Rooney once shared that a minor altercation, in which Keane told him to “f*** himself”, ultimately led to a deep-seated respect between them. The incident took place before a 2004 Premier League match against Newcastle.

The United squad had arrived at a hotel in the North East on a Friday evening, ahead of the Saturday fixture. As they unwound in front of the TV, enjoying a meal together, tensions began to rise.

Keane had decided to watch a rugby match. After briefly stepping out of the room, he returned to find that the channel had been changed, and the remote control was nowhere to be found.

In his 2014 autobiography, The Second Half, Keane recounted the incident: “We were in a hotel, the Friday night before a game I forget where. The team would always sit down and have a meal together. There was a big TV in the room.

“I was into rugby league, and there was a big game on. I went to the toilet, came back and someone had changed the channel to something stupid. I can’t remember what it was. A few of the players were sitting there, giggling away.

“I said, ‘Where’s the rugby league?’ I knew Wayne was up to something. I said, ‘Where’s the remote control? ‘ He said, ‘I don’t know.’ I said, ‘You f****** do’. I didn’t exactly storm out, but I couldn’t be bothered trying to get the remote control back, so I decided I’d watch the rest of the match up in my room.

“I came down the next morning for the pre-match meal and Wayne was brave enough to come up to me. ‘Did you ever find the remote control, Roy?’ I think I told him to go and f*** himself. It was the only disagreement I ever had with him.”

Their spat seemingly laid the groundwork for improved relations, with Keane suggesting Rooney’s audacity to face him might’ve been key. Rooney concurs, regarding their clash as beneficial.

Speaking in 2018, Rooney reflected on the significance of their altercation. He said: “I always remember my first away trip, having that argument with Roy Keane. We were watching the rugby before we were playing Newcastle away.

“He went to get some food, so I put X-Factor on and hid the remote. He wasn’t happy about it and we had an argument. But I think straight away, he respected me more for standing up to him.”

Keane’s departure from United came shortly after as he moved to Celtic in 2005 having clinched seven Premier League titles, four FA Cups, and a Champions League with Sir Alex Ferguson at the helm. Rooney continued to don the United jersey until 2017, departing as the club’s greatest-ever scorer, boasting five league titles, three League Cups, and a Champions League victory.

Nowadays, the duo frequently join forces on Sky Sports’ The Overlap podcast, sharing the platform with fellow ex-United stars Gary Neville and Paul Scholes.