Roy Keane was named in the Nottingham Forest all-time XI as part of the club’s 150-year anniversary back in 2015.
The former City Ground midfielder is arguably one of the best players ever unearthed by Brian Clough who plucked him from Cobh Ramblers.
These days Keane is a respected pundit who isn’t backwards in coming forward on the hot topics within football.
With Euro 2024 taking centre stage, he’s given an interview when he’s been quizzed on certain things that happened during his career.
As with most of his former players, Keane has delivered a story that showcases what a brilliant man-manager Clough was in his heyday.
Roy Keane shares three things that Brian Clough asked of him
The Stick to Football podcast normally features Keane as one of the regular pundits but this week, the other guests decided to grill him on his career.
When Keane came to Forest he was merely a teenager finding his way in men’s football – yet he didn’t disappoint.
He quickly established himself as a regular in the Forest midfield, proving the lynchpin that held things together.
Ahead of his debut – a 2-0 defeat to Liverpool in 1990 – he has now shared what Clough told him to do before the match.
He told the Stick to Football podcast: “He said, the first thing he said to me regarding football, and I made a career out of it, he just said, you’re putting that on. But I wasn’t that intimidated by Brian Clough because I was young and innocent.
“He said, I’ve seen you pre-season. He said you can control the ball. I was like, yeah.
“He said, you can pass it. I said yeah. He said, you can run.
“He went, just do them three things for me. And I go, every time even when I left Forest and I went to United, or I might have been having difficult spells, I remember they were the basics for me. Control the ball.
“I know people laugh when I say, control the ball, pass it and run. That was my career. That’s what he said to me before my debut.
“Can you do that for me? Absolutely.”
Clough was one of a kind at Forest
Quite simply the days of Brian Clough – and even Sir Alex Ferguson to a certain extent – are non-existent anymore.
Clough spent 28 years managing Forest winning two European Cups at the City Ground and etching his name into icon territory.
The days of managers spending that long at one club are now over, with ambitious owners demanding success on the pitch yesterday.
Keane always speaks fondly about Forest and Clough – with the great man clearly the architect behind the career which he had.
The former midfielder deserved his place in the all-time XI that was chosen in 2015 and he will always have that recognition from the club’s supporters.
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