During a lengthy press conference ahead of Ireland’s Tuesday night friendly clash with Poland in Wroclaw, manager Martin O’Neill talked about the leaked WhatsApp recording by Stephen Ward.
What did Stephen Ward say?
On it, Stephen Ward details his account of the rows between O’Neill’s assistant manager Roy Keane and two team members – Jon Walters and Harry Arter. According to Ward, the one with Walters got very heated.
“Apparently they were squaring up to each other, having it off and had to be pulled off each other,”
“All the lads were grabbing Jonny away from him [Roy Keane], Jonny was going to kill him.”
In the aftermath, Walters allegedly offered a truce, only to then be denied by Keane.
The argument with Harry Arter, on the other hand, was relatively one-sided.
“Harry was just going, ‘Roy, I’m not speaking to you like this, you know, I’m not listening to you, you’re not the manager so you can’t say anything to me’.”
“Harry just got up off the treatment bed and walked back to his room and as he was walking back to his room Roy was just shouting down the corridor… it didn’t come to blows but just basically Roy losing his head.”
Both incidents were connected to the players sitting out training due to injuries, something Keane didn’t approve of.
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Martin O’Neill defends Roy Keane
Martin O’Neill was quick to defend his right hand.
“First of all the incidents took place at the end of May,”
“They have surfaced months later. It’s not the first altercation between players and staff. I had one with the man beside me on Friday (David Meyler) and he took it on board.”
“…Stephen wasn’t there, he’s just picking up on things,”
“I think there are differences over what was said (but there was) a confrontation with Jon and a confrontation with Harry. Jon is fine. Harry perhaps not so fine.
“(Roy) was looking for exacting standards and that’s exactly what I want, whatever way they are mentioned to people.
“Sometimes I think the game has changed. But hopefully, it hasn’t changed that much that there are some things you can still say to a player, maybe using some industrial, heavy-duty language at the end of it all, if you think they can actually take it and go out and prove the person wrong.”
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Since then, Arter left the Irish national team to focus on his playing career while Walters is still part of the squad and was on the pitch in Ireland’s 4-1 defeat to Wales. O’Neill believes there’s a chance Walters and Keane reconcile eventually and at the same time did not offer much sympathy for Stephen Ward.
“Do I have sympathy or empathy for a 33-year-old who has known about social media for a long time and says he’s just telling it to a crowd of mates? Today… probably not. Tomorrow… probably not also.
“He has been betrayed by some of his friends, who he has known for a long, long time. That will be a disappointment for him.
“But I think that Stephen has apologized to Roy.”
Roy Keane has been known for his emotional outbursts throughout his playing and coaching career. Him getting into people’s faces is nothing new. Whether they are appreciative of that manner of conversation or not is a completely different story.
