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Irish Mirror
Irish Mirror
Sport
Harry Brent

Roy Keane could've lost £8k bet in Sunderland training - but embarrassed player instead

Roy Keane has never been one to suffer fools gladly and demonstrated during his time as Sunderland boss that he was prepared to lose thousands of pounds to put anyone who irritated him in their place.

Back in 2007, the Irishman signed Craig Gordon from Hearts for what was then a British transfer record fee for a goalkeeper, but after a series of underwhelming performances in training, Keane decided to teach the Scot a brutal lesson.

The gloves are usually off when the former Manchester United skipper's unhappy, but this time it was the opposite.

He decided to jump in goal himself, and offered cash prizes to anyone who could beat him from outside the box.

"I put the gloves on and I said that if they could get the ball past me I’d give them a thousand pounds each but, if they missed, they’d have to give me a hundred," Keane recalled in his autobiography.

Roy Keane (Getty Images)

"Eight or nine players lined up, and I knew that Craig and the other goalkeepers were pissed off with it. They didn’t even look at my goalkeeping skills.

"They just did their stretches. I tipped a few on to the bar, on to the post, and I kept a clean sheet. I won eight hundred quid off the players – I could have lost eight grand."

Keane insisted he wasn't trying to antagonise his players and only wanted to "generate a bit of banter" in the group, but his stellar performance between the sticks made that difficult.

"I’d embarrassed, and maybe belittled, the goalkeepers. I hadn’t meant to," he stressed.

Craig Gordon (Getty Images)

"But I didn’t think the keeper should be beaten from 25 or 30 yards. I think I lost Craig for a few weeks, and maybe longer, because of that."

A few days ago, Gabby Agbonlahor gave Keane's man management skills a "zero out of 100" in light of a series of clashes the two had during their brief spell together at Aston Villa in 2014.

In the last week or so Keane has been in talks with Sunderland over a sensational return as manager, despite the fact that he hasn't been a manager for over a decade.

The popular pundit has taken on several assistant roles in the past few years, but has regularly spoken of his desire to get back into full time management.

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