The truth of Roy Keane's feud with the Haalands: What it's REALLY like when Alfie and ex-Man United captain work at the same games, the 'spoilt brat' jibe that 'does Keane's job' for Sky... and how Erling deals with it all

Departures at Manchester Airport, summer 2001. Alfie Haaland is on his way to Ohio, where a specialist awaits at the world-renowned Cleveland Clinic to perform surgery on a knee complaint.

A member of the public mutters something in his direction. It's football-related and presumably has something to do with the recent Manchester derby at Old Trafford.

The Manchester City captain turns. 'Yeah, I'll just get Roy Keane's studs out of my knee,' he says, still sore from the assault inflicted by his Manchester United counterpart in late April.

The surgery keeps him out for six months. Failure to recover fully from it effectively ends his career, Haaland playing just 48 minutes professionally across four substitute appearances before calling time.

Now Keane's ugly lunge, a straight leg spearing into the Norwegian and sending him cartwheeling, does not enforce retirement on its own. It harms Haaland's right knee and in Ohio, they operate on the left. A knee is dependent on the other one though and Keane hasn't helped matters. Haaland later puts having to hang up his boots months after that horror tackle down to 'a great coincidence', said with a large dollop of irony.

Keane's callous challenge halfway up Haaland's leg is retribution after four years of festering anger at the way the City man reacted to the United midfielder's own ACL damage in 1997. 'Take that, you ****,' Keane wrote of the tackle on Haaland in his incendiary autobiography.

A four-year feud at that point. More than long enough. But in this story, we are now 27 times around the sun. And the child born nine months before that balmy afternoon in Stretford, when the Keane mist descends and to hell with the wreckage, is bang in the middle of it all.

March, 2024. City 0-0 Arsenal. Erling Haaland – the Premier League's top scorer, the best striker in the world – is double-marked by William Saliba and Gabriel for 90 minutes. He is afforded just 23 touches all afternoon, registering four shots.

A drab game. Arsenal sit in for a point, one they hope will inch them closer to a first title in two decades. In the Sky Sports studio up in a corner of the Etihad Stadium, one particular air kick of Haaland's at the back post is discussed. Alongside Micah Richards and Theo Walcott, Keane – the neutral pick on the punditry panel - sits and delivers his verdict.

Just like in 2001, his eyes are not on the ball. Instead, fixated solely on the man. 'The level of his (Haaland's) general play is so poor,' Keane says, easing back in his chair. 'Not just today. His laying stuff off, headers, whatever it might be - is so poor.

'In terms of in front of goal, he's the best in the world. But his general play is so poor. He's almost like a League Two player. That's how I look at him. His general play has to improve and it will do.'

Rightly or wrongly, other former professionals – some of them among the very best – offer similar about Haaland Jnr's general build-up play and pundits in the game maintain there is merit to what Keane says. There is an acceptance from the striker himself that he can improve and there have been signs this season that he is making strong strides in that area of his game. In the days after Keane's explosive remarks, Pep Guardiola praised his No 9's ability to occupy two centre halves against Arsenal in a way that ought to have opened space for those behind him.

The belief by pundits though is that Haaland seems way short of his best. But there is a key difference between Keane and the rest. None of other pundits, even privately, go as far as the 'League Two' description. Loaded in a way that had somebody with knowledge of the situation joking that he'll still be picking arguments with Alfie's grandchildren if that opportunity ever arises. Even if it isn't, it all feels and looks a bit personal. 'There is that needle,' one source says.

Yet those who know Keane, the affable character off camera to his Machiavellian persona when the lights are on, insist all this is for the show, that he bears no grudge or ill-feeling.

'He's a pantomime villain - that's the role assigned to him,' another source says. 'What Keane was alluding to was how he can use his body better. The whole League Two thing was said for effect but he has no problem with the Haaland family at all. He says a lot of things for effect without meaning it. Can you imagine him doing an advert dressed as a clown 10 years ago? Never. Now he knows exactly what he is doing.'

This all helps Sky. All over the newspapers, websites, social media. Keane's 'done his job', a dry line he often likes to trot out about footballers. Guardiola has to respond so the story runs for a day or two.

Last weekend, Erling himself was the one grilled about it. Viaplay, the Norwegian broadcaster, put the League Two stuff to him. It had, after all, dominated the news cycle back home in much the same way as here. 'I don't really care that much about that man, so that's all right,' he answered pointedly. It had definitely rankled, although the Haaland camp have chosen to publicly laugh rather than rise. 'Keane is a quote machine,' one source says. 'Erling doesn't think much about this stuff. He forgot the question as soon as he walked out.'

It continued. Erling's reaction after a substitution during the 5-1 weekend win over Wolves, when he helped himself to four in reaching 25 league goals for the season, saw him in Keane's crosshairs once more.

Live from Anfield on Sunday, 24 hours on. Erling behaved like a 'spoilt brat' when he came off, Keane inferring dissent towards his manager in a way a parent might suffer from an unruly teenager. In the minutes before his substitution, Erling had visibly become frustrated with the refereeing. His chuntering carried on, with Guardiola and then into the dugout.

'Roy Keane - 52 years of age - has finally found an enemy after his retirement,' posted Jan Aage Fjortoft, the broadcaster and ex-Norway striker. 'Erling Haaland – 23 years of age.' Haaland Snr sent a laughing emoji back. The most inflamed the father has become about the situation is when suggesting an 'agenda'.

Keane has been called a 'fool' inside the Haaland camp, 'bitter' that Erling has taken the world by storm. 'The problem now is that it will keep going because Roy will never back down from anyone,' a source says. 'You've got two high-profile people now not wanting to back down. People say it's petty but it's not coming from a place of hate or malice, it's just nobody blinking first.'

On the surface it is all fairly harmless these days. Haaland Jnr is never going to stop scoring goals and is big and cleverer enough not to allow barbs to unsettle him. Keane and Haaland Snr are never going to be mates, bumping into each other at a gig in 2003 and now regularly seen in the same areas of stadiums ahead of Premier League matches. No words are exchanged. Play on.

Neither side, according to various sources – all of whom prefer not to speak on record, which tells something in itself – absolutely obsess about the other. But it couldn't really have got any worse in the wake of Keane's 2002 autobiography. 'I'd waited long enough,' he wrote on the knee-high tackle that sparked a fracas in the Old Trafford tunnel but not on the pitch. 'I f***ing hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you ****. And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries.'

Alfie was no angel in midfield either, physically and verbally. Erling winces when shown his old man's brutish tackles. And Keane had not forgotten the way in which Alfie told him to 'get up' at Elland Road in 1997. Keane had attempted to trip the Leeds man, an action that saw him rupture his own ACL. 'He was stood over me when I did my cruciate, a bad injury,' Keane said recently. 'He was saying some nasty things and I just thought, "we'll meet again".'

Four years went by. They faced each other without major incident. Then that moment. A three-game ban and a fine of two weeks' wages for Keane. City manager Joe Royle claimed Alfie was fortunate that his leg was already airborne, otherwise 'we'd probably still be looking for it'.

'It was revenge,' says a City source. 'We got a late equaliser [through Steve Howey] so we were quite happy. Old Trafford was a fortress and we were struggling at the time. I remember someone from United coming into our dressing room trying to get Alfie to sign something, as if to say that he wouldn't take it any further. They obviously knew how serious an incident it was.

'Alfie was in a lot of discomfort afterwards. I don't know how many games Roy would get for that now. You'd be hauled in front of the FA.'

Only when the autobiography dropped did the punishment become truly serious. A five-game ban and £150,000 fine, the heaviest financial sanction the FA had ever handed out. Keane's misconduct, tantamount to an admission of deliberately injuring a fellow professional in a premeditated act of spite, was said to have been exacerbated by the estimated £2million he earned from book sales. The tell-all on Haaland was the headline-grabber and shifted copies. In a later autobiography, published in 2014, Keane clarified his version.

'[He] p****ed me off, shooting his mouth off,' he wrote. 'He was an absolute p**** to play against. Niggling, sneaky. I did want to nail him and let him know what was happening. I wanted to hurt him and stand over him. I don't regret that. But I had no wish to injure him.'

David Elleray shows Keane red and Paul Dickov shook his hand as he stormed to abuse Alfie, stricken on the floor. There had been irritation around City that none of their side piled into Keane, only Paulo Wanchope and Jeff Whitley appearing remotely vexed. Sources claim that awe stopped Richard Dunne and Mark Kennedy confronting their Republic of Ireland teammate. For so long, Keane was an untouchable force.

That Alfie started a friendly for Norway against Bulgaria four days later remains puzzling and can only have contributed to the damage in his left knee. The beginning of the end, anyway, and in August 2008 – during an interview with Mail Sport about the incident – Alfie didn't once mention Keane by name. He did, however, remark on Sunderland, whom his old foe managed.

'Well, they just stayed up last season, didn't they?' he said. 'I would expect that a big club like Sunderland would expect better than that.' Keane resigned in early December with the Black Cats in the relegation zone.

None of the Haalands would admit to quiet satisfaction at that turn of events but some feel Erling ramming home his point is now poetic. Erling is no fan of United and looked pretty pleased when beating Andre Onana from the spot to silence taunts of 'Keano, Keano' from the Stretford End in October.

That all makes the Haaland relationship with Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – an ex-international colleague of Alfie and instrumental in Erling's development at Molde – so fascinating. Solskjaer had twice recommended United sign him: once before he joined Red Bull Salzburg from Molde and then when Borussia Dortmund came calling. The club never went for it.

One wonders whether this all might have been different with Keane had Erling been wearing red instead of blue these days.