{"id":406536,"date":"2026-01-11T16:17:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T16:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/406536\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T16:17:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T16:17:10","slug":"roy-keane-says-sir-alex-ferguson-is-like-a-bad-smell-at-manchester-united-amid-coach-hunt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/406536\/","title":{"rendered":"Roy Keane says Sir Alex Ferguson is &#8216;like a bad smell&#8217; at Manchester United amid coach hunt"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/topic\/manchester-united-1m1d\" class=\"sc-bdnylu bhXlPO\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Manchester United<\/a> great Roy Keane has taken a swipe at former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/football\/premier-league-2025-manchester-united-news-mark-bosnich-exclusive-interview-alex-ferguson-david-beckham-20250812-p5mnjf.html\" class=\"sc-bdnylu bhXlPO\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sir Alex Ferguson<\/a> as the hunt for a new coach continues.<\/p>\n<p>The powerhouse Premier League club <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/football\/premier-league-news-2026-ruben-amorim-sacked-manchester-united-coach-20260105-p5nruo.html\" class=\"sc-bdnylu bhXlPO\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">sacked Ruben Amorim this past week<\/a>, making it 10 managers since Ferguson departed the end of the 2013-14 season.<\/p>\n<p>Ferguson, who won an astonishing 13 league titles during his time in charge of the Red Devils, has remained a fixture at games and around the club since retiring.<\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/football\/fa-cup-results-2026-macclesfield-defeat-crystal-palace-result-video-fans-storm-pitch-sixth-tier-club-20260111-p5nt3v.html\" class=\"sc-bdnylu bhXlPO\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Epic scenes as sixth-tier club knock out FA Cup champs<\/a><\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/cricket\/ashes-news-2026-england-behaviour-issues-reports-michael-vaughan-comments-criticism-20260111-p5nt42.html\" class=\"sc-bdnylu bhXlPO\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Bombshell report on &#8216;loose&#8217; tour leaves England great fuming<\/a><\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/football\/news-2026-a-league-men-brisbane-roar-justin-vidic-alleged-racial-abuse-slur-michael-valkanis-comments-20260110-p5nt41.html\" class=\"sc-bdnylu bhXlPO\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">A-League star &#8216;not in a good way&#8217; after alleged racial abuse<\/a><\/p>\n<p>But according to Keane, who played 326 games for United during his career, Ferguson&#8217;s continued presence is doing more harm the good in the search for a long-term coach.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/6642cf09caaae6802f66e69c96e9aabb7b74469d.png\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Sir Alex Ferguson and Roy Keane.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;What happens in these job interviews? I&#8217;m intrigued,&#8221; Keane said on Sky Sports.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Why do they keep giving certain people a job? What happens in the interview that they sit there and go &#8230; and 12, 14 months later say &#8216;he&#8217;s not the guy for us&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Do you not suss that out when you speak to them?<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You see who&#8217;s making the decisions at Manchester United. You still have Ferguson and David Gill hanging on like a bad smell.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Ole Gunnar Solskjaer is firmly in the mix to take over for his second full-time stint at Old Trafford, but it will be Darren Fletcher who steps into the caretaker role.<\/p>\n<p>Fletcher spoke about the influence of Ferguson after being appointed as interim coach.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t like to make any major decisions without speaking to Sir Alex,&#8221; Fletcher said.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/ee5781c22da647e0016c75ba4acb894d00063a6f.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Darren Fletcher.\u00a0Manchester United via Getty Imag<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve got a really good relationship with Sir Alex, so I wanted to speak to him first and ultimately to get his blessing, to be perfectly honest. I think he deserves that respect.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I wanted to run it by him, and he echoed my thoughts. When you&#8217;re an employee of the club, it&#8217;s your job to do your best for Manchester United. It is something I try and live and believe every day, so it was comforting for me for him to say that.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>United sit in eighth spot on the Premier League table but remain just one win outside of the top-four with 17 games left in the season.<\/p>\n<p>Fletcher will lead the side into an FA Cup clash with Brighton on Monday (AEDT).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United great Roy Keane has taken a swipe at former Sir Alex Ferguson as the hunt for&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406537,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[563],"tags":[64,63,596,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-406536","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-football","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406536"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406536\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}