ROY KEANE’S BOOK is the gift that just keeps on giving at the moment. In the latest extract, Keane talks about why he decided against signing Robbie Savage during his time as Sunderland manager. It really is classic Keane.

“I rang Mark Hughes. Robbie [Savage] wasn’t in the Blackburn team and I asked Mark if we could try to arrange a deal,” Keane says in his new book, The Second Half, as seen by the Guardian.

“Sparky said: ‘Yeah, yeah, he’s lost his way here but he could still do a job for you.’ Robbie’s legs were going a bit but I thought he might come up to us [at Sunderland], with his long hair, and give us a lift – the way Yorkie [Dwight Yorke] had, a big personality in the dressing room. Sparky gave me permission to give him a call.

“So I got Robbie’s mobile number and rang him. It went to his voicemail: ‘Hi, it’s Robbie – whazzup!’ like the Budweiser ad. I never called him back. I thought: ‘I can’t be fucking signing that.’”

Robbie Savage has since weighed in on the ‘controversy’.

In fairness to Keane, that ad is very annoying in retrospect.

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