ROY KEANE ONCE again responded to criticism from former mentor Alex Ferguson today.

The newly-installed Ireland assistant manager said at the Malahide press conference that today was not the time to fully address claims in Fergie’s newest autobiography. But he did admit he intends to defend himself against “lies”.

“The beauty of football is that everybody has opinions and I’ve no problem with that,” he said when asked about the former Manchester United manager’s criticism of Keane. “The issue I have is when anybody who seems to talk about me or has issues with what I’ve said in the past will just tells lies about me; that’s when I’ll come out and defend myself.

“I’m not going to sit here and defend myself regarding Alex Ferguson, that’s for another day. I’m not really going to get into that too much. Football is about opinions, I’ve no problem about that, but when it’s lies that’s when you come out and say something. Today is not for that… today’s about talking about getting back involved with the Irish team with Martin, it’s all positive. It’s not an area I want to go into today.”

New boss Martin O’Neill explained this week that he does not intend to ‘tame’ the Corkman but today, Keane said that though he sometimes got it wrong with people, he is not an animal.

“There’s nothing to tame. I’m not some sort of animal, you know what I mean? I’m a footballing man, I like to work hard and push people, and sometimes I suppose I have got that slightly wrong on one or two occasions over the years. But generally speaking, I look back and I think I have got a lot of it right,” he said.

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