Bristling Roy Keane brings Alex Ferguson to book

So then, after it was unofficially launched on Twitter on Monday, when an employee at Tesco in the Manchester suburb of Burnage put it on the shelves three days early, yesterday was the official unveiling of Roy Keane's second autobiography, written with Roddy Doyle.

The mere mention of Tesco had Roy chucking his eyes heavenwards, Aldi and/or Lidl missing a trick by not sponsoring yesterday's event at the Aviva Stadium, but the same eyes narrowed when he was informed that Alex Ferguson, as fate would have it, was also in Dublin.

Would they let bygones be bygones and, after his former Manchester United manager finished his work with the Chamber of Commerce over at the convention centre, meet up later?

“I will be busy tonight,” he said, which probably came as a relief to the riot squad, lest it had to form a cordon between the pair in the event of them bumping in to each other.

No easing up in tensions, then, the Cork man still bristling from the nature of his departure from United and the gaffer’s subsequent criticism of him. “And he made millions out of it, he got his statues, he got his stand named after him,” he said. (Riot squad dusts down shields).

“Will I ever forgive him? I don’t know. We’ll see if we ever cross paths again. I’m sure we will . . . cross paths, I mean,” he added, lest anyone thought forgiveness was likely.

Conciliatory

But Ferguson invited you to the unveiling of his statue at Old Trafford — was that not a conciliatory gesture?

“No. I don’t think he invited me, it was probably his committee or his son, or whatever, but why would I go to that? That was all power and control. He comes in and we’re all standing [makes applause gesture, while sighing] and he’s ‘I’ve got you where I want you.’ ” (Riot squad departs barracks.)

He went on to liken his meetings with Doyle to “therapy sessions”, but it seems there’s work to be done yet on healing the relationship with Ferguson.

And a few others, too. “But it’s not all about falling out with people,” he insisted. “Strangely enough, in the course of my career, I actually don’t think I fell out with that many people.” (Said with a straight-bearded face, too.)

The burning question, though, what has he against ABBA? In his book, he described his alarm at hearing his Sunderland players listening to Dancing Queen in the dressing room before they left for the pitch. "It worried me," he said, "I didn't have as many leaders as I thought."

But, one brave soul reminded him, his first single was Culture Club's Karma Chameleon.

The eyes narrowed again. “I was 12!”

The brave soul recoiled a touch, in a “Do you really want to hurt me?” kind of way.