Roy Keane had a typically cynical opinion when asked for his thoughts on Ben Chilwell, Mason Mount and Billy Gilmour.
Mount and Chilwell have been forced to self-isolate until Monday due to an interaction with Chelsea teammate Gilmour, who recently tested positive for COVID-19, after the England vs Scotland game last Friday.
Both men will likely be eligible to compete in the Three Lions’ Round of 16 game but despite that, questions have still been raised about why none of the Scotland squad wasn’t forced to self-isolate alongside Mount and Chilwell.
Alas, instead of focusing on that side of the issue, Keane questioned why they spent so long talking to each other in the first place.
“I think the only thing I’d be critical of is why would you want to speak to an opposition player – I don’t care if he’s your teammate or not – for over 20 minutes?” He said.
“Why would you want to speak to an opposition player for over 20 minutes? I don’t care if he’s your club team-mate or not – I very rarely speak to anybody for over five minutes!” ?
— ITV Football (@itvfootball) June 22, 2021
?Roy Keane's thoughts on Mount and Chilwell's chat with Gilmour#ENG | #ITVFootball | #Euro2020 pic.twitter.com/3hg3xjljQG
“I very rarely speak to anybody for over five minutes, after a game where you’ve just been to war against somebody, why you’d want to chat to somebody for that long.
“They could have used a bit more common sense.”
The situation will likely begin to die down now that Chilwell and Mount will seemingly be ready to play in the next round, whereas the Scots crashed out of the tournament courtesy of a 3-1 loss to Croatia on Tuesday.
The Euros have mostly gone off without too many issues but with the cloud of COVID-19 uncertainty still circling, there’s every chance more incidents such as this could begin to arise as we head into the knockout stage.
For the time being the focus solely rests on next Tuesday night which is when England will compete in their Round of 16 clash against second place from Group F – with the opponent being determined after the final set of fixtures later this evening.
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