Keane hits out at England ‘arrogance’ as ITV pundit claims ‘proper men’ would win Euro 2024
Roy Keane has slammed the “arrogance” of England as the ITV pundit hit out at Gary Neville and Ian Wright over their claim about “the weight of the jersey”.
Ollie Watkins’ last gasp winner against the Netherlands secured England’s spot in their second consecutive Euros final against Spain on Sunday.
‘That’s not on this group of players’
But ahead of the game on Wednesday Keane took issue with the focus on the Three Lions’ history at major tournaments.
He said: “You talk about England not having won anything for 30, 40 years, that’s not on this group of players. Focus on winning the game of football and history will take care of itself.
“When you talk about the weight of the jersey, I think there’s a bit of arrogance that comes with that.
“The consequences of a mistake, that is part of top level sport, you have to deal with that and over the years maybe they haven’t done that well enough.”
Keane’s co-pundit Wright interrupted him to say: “Roy, you say about arrogance, we’ve got players who are good enough to win. We’ve got players that are capable of winning this tournament.”
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Players not good enough
Keane hit back: “We’ve been hearing that every tournament, for 30-50 years. To say you’ve had players to win every tournament over the last 30 years, I don’t agree with that.”
Gareth Southgate’s England has been by far the most successful Three Lions team of the modern era, comfortably outstripping the achievements of the Golden Generation, of which Neville was a part.
The former Man Utd right-back said: “As the golden generation, we underperformed. Players had unbelievable reputations, but put the England shirt on and were worried if it went wrong.
“It’s heartening to see that Gareth said at start of tournament they were worried about outside criticism. This time they’ve had to come through it.”
Keane was having none of it, claiming “proper men” would cope with the pressure and win major tournaments like Euro 2024.
“Please educate me on the golden generation. Having good players doesn’t make you a good team. If you have solid good group of players, proper men, they’ll deal with the pressure, it’s part of the pressure of winning tournaments.”
