Blowhard former Villa assistant slags team he abandoned for book sales

Think back to the early days of this season. There, from the mists, came a bearded crazy man to bring order and spine to Aston Villa. Standing next to meek Paul Lambert was the lovable blowhard Roy Keane. Sure he was disliked by the vast majority of the footballing world, and yes he was a thuggish troll. But he was our thuggish troll and we loved him. Remember, for instance, the time that he called Jose Mourinho a disgrace? Amazing.

Then in November, he left. The reason was that he wanted to focus on his job as Ireland's assistant manager. Fair play, to ya, Roy. It was fun while you were here.

But you're not here any more. You quit on the club in the middle of the season, and regardless of why you did that, that fact remains. And now, in a feeble attempt to sell more copies of his ghostwritten autobiography, Keane is throwing grenades at the club that he unceremoniously dumped. Mere months after the first edition of the book came out, Keane is updating The Second Half with his time at Aston Villa, about which he says: "It's a tired club, a tired brand."

He also talked about the troubles the team had scoring: "As a friend of mine says, some of them couldn't finish their dinner."

We'll get to the first line in a minute, but let's address the scoring thing first. Keane is right, those players couldn't score to save themselves. But interestingly, that trend stopped almost the minute that Tim Sherwood became manager of the club. In the 25 matches the club played this year under Paul Lambert (and partially under Roy Keane), they scored 12 goals. In the 10 matches since then, they have scored 17. Given that the players are (largely) the same, the only variable is the coaching.

And thus, Roy, it seems that the players couldn't finish their dinner at least partially because you didn't know what you were doing. And as for that tired club, tired brand tripe, I again invite you to look at what has happened since Tim Sherwood took over: 13 points in 10 matches as opposed to 22 in 25. This was a tired club. Tired of the poor management of Paul Lambert and yourself.

While you were here, I was willing to put up with and even enjoy your persona. But now that you're gone, I see what everyone else did. It's fitting that you work under Martin O'Neill, the other Irishman who left Villa in the lurch and who we can all collectively hate. And so, Roy, from Villa fans to you: take your tired wind-bag narrative of your tired personal brand and kindly f*ck off.