Roy Keane had an explosive exchange with a Premier League icon in the dressing room… ‘it just hit a nerve’

EXCLUSIVE: Roy Keane motivated a defender to put on one of the best displays of his career by shouting at him at halftime.

During his stint as manager of Sunderland, the Irishman employed some interesting methods to get the best out of his players.

Anton Ferdinand opens up about his heated clash with Roy Keane

After a poor first-half display against Blackburn Rovers, Roy Keane was nothing short of furious. Consequently, the Champions League winner vented his frustrations with the squad, prompting Anton Ferdinand to argue back. Of course, the gaffer wasn’t having that, firing verbal shots at the centre-back, which resulted in the talented player going above and beyond to put on a tremendous performance.

In an exclusive interview with Sporf, Ferdinand explained: “We were playing away at Blackburn and we’d come in at halftime 1-0 down and he’d read us the riot act. Then, all of a sudden, just before the buzzer went, after giving us a grilling, I didn’t agree with him and I spoke up, and he went, ‘I knew you were going to say something’.

“After he grilled us again, he said, ‘Who’s going to show me that they’ve got the personality to go out and grab this game by the scruff of the neck and win this game for us’? He looked at me and went, ‘We know you won’t because you’ve not got any personality’.

“It just hit a nerve with me, and triggered me in a good way. In the tunnel, I went to the lads, ‘Let’s prove him wrong’. We went out there, Djibril Cissé scored after halftime, and then we scored again, and I blocked one off the line in the last few minutes.

“I just remember after the final whistle went and we won the game, I was really amped up, ‘He said I have no personality. Have that’. I went steaming into the dressing room to confront him, to go, ‘No personality, gaffer’?

“He was standing at the door with his hand out, ready to shake my hand. He shook my hand, pulled me in, gave me a shoulder barge and said into my ear, ‘I knew we were going to win that f****** game’. Then, he started giggling, and that was the end of it.

“When I look back, it was fantastic management, because he triggered me to have a positive impact on the rest of the team, because he knew I’d be vocal about it. That, for me, is fantastic management.”

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Anton Ferdinand kept Luis Suarez ‘quiet’ with a fellow Sunderland star

Ferdinand had many a memorable moment at Sunderland.

During his time with ‘The Black Cats’, he had to deal with Luis Suarez.

However, while most struggled to contain the Uruguayan, the Englishman had the opposite experience.

Interestingly, Ferdinand says he kept Suarez ‘quiet’, with the help of the one player he knew was better than him.

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