Roy Keane reopened his feud with Erling Haaland by calling the Manchester City striker a “spoilt brat” after he was taken off in the win over Wolves. Keane, speaking on Sky Sports, said Haaland had behaved badly when substituted and then used the moment to repeat his wider criticism of the forward’s game.
The pundit said, “We saw Erling Haaland yesterday being brought off, not too happy, behaving like a spoilt brat,” before adding that because Man City win and he scores goals, “it’s almost forgotten about.” He went further, saying “The level of his general play is so poor and not just today,” then drew the line that has defined his view for months: in front of goal, Haaland is “the best in the world.”
The timing gave the comments extra force. Haaland had just scored four goals against Wolves, yet his reaction to being substituted was enough to pull him straight back into a row that has followed him throughout his Manchester City career. Norway were also preparing to face England in a World Cup quarter-final on Saturday, with Haaland coming into that match after scoring seven times in five matches during his debut World Cup campaign.
The dispute goes back nearly two decades, to Keane’s notorious tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland in the Manchester derby in 2001. That moment still hangs over every fresh exchange between Keane and the Haaland family, and it explains why a post-match television criticism can quickly become more than a routine pundit’s verdict. Keane’s remarks were not new in tone, but they were sharpened by the setting, the scoreline and the fact that Haaland remained the player at the center of the argument.
There is a reason the row keeps resurfacing: Keane has separated Haaland’s finishing from the rest of his game, praising the goals while tearing apart the build-up play. He went as far as saying Haaland was “almost like a League Two player,” a line that sits in stark contrast to Pep Guardiola’s defense of the striker as the finest in world football. Unless Haaland answers it himself, the argument will keep being carried by the people around him, and that old tackle from 2001 will keep shadowing every new criticism.
