TIM HOWARD reveals the hidden genius of Roy Keane at Manchester United, what it’s really like working with the captain and pundit everyone fears… and why he turned down a VERY rare invite to dinner with him and his wife

I was in my first or second year at Manchester United when Roy Keane got word that my family had gone back to the United States for a week. He invited me round for dinner with his wife Theresa and the kids.

I was a young, foreign player but he knew everything that was going on within the club. He knew my family had gone home. He knew I was on my own. No one sees that side of Roy – he is very much a gentleman in so many ways.

I didn’t go in the end – I was too scared! I just remember thinking: I am so deathly afraid to sit across from Roy in his own house and have dinner. He was Manchester United at that time – and he was far more fearsome in person. But the sentiment was there.

Never a moment went by that Roy didn’t feel contributed to a winning mentality: turning up on time, what you look like in your suit or tracksuit. Everything mattered. He was a master winner.

The special thing I took from Roy was that sometimes leaders slip – they say one thing and then do another. Roy was never, ever caught slipping.

It was incredible, impeccable leadership – even if I didn’t love it at times because I was a young player and I was scared to death of him. But when you hold people to a higher standard – and you’re able to maintain that – it’s pretty special.

If one moment summed him up it was at Highbury in 2005. Arsenal vs Manchester United, the night Roy confronted Patrick Vieira in the tunnel.

What I can tell you from being in the dressing room? None of that was an act. There had been a coming together after warm-ups between Gary Neville and Patrick. And something was brewing. There was talk about it in the dressing room. But none of it came from Roy.

So many people get caught up in the hooting and hollering in the dressing room – ‘I’m going to do this and that’. Roy never said boo. He just waited, he walked out and he said exactly what he needed to. That was it. That was Roy: he wasn’t doing anything for the cameras or the show. He just did it.

Later in my career, we lived around the same village – I was at Everton, Roy was Ireland coach. He would come to see a couple of our Irish players and then we would have a cup of tea and just chat.

Roy is an incredibly well-read, intelligent and thoughtful man. But he is also not someone who is going to share that with just any and everybody. Not everyone gets that side of Roy Keane. You have to earn that side of him.

What I learned at a young age was that his expectations were incredibly high. But if you pushed yourself to that level, then you were able to understand him more. If you didn’t take shortcuts, then he had respect for you.

Some people wonder if that style of leadership could work in today’s game. I believe it would. Why? Because winners win.

He would thrive alongside the best players of this era because they want to be great as well. He would still raise the level of top teams.

I was nervous about everything when I first got to Manchester United in 2003. But when meeting someone, Roy is a gentleman – he looks you in the eye, he shakes your hand, and he speaks very clearly.

It’s only once you lace up your boots and start training that you realize: this is a different animal. Roy created such an impossible standard – he set it for himself and that set the bar for the players around him.

He thought there was a right way to do things – and there was. He was obsessed with being the best.

Put simply: Roy wanted to make sure there was no one around Carrington or Old Trafford that was just there for the sake of it. He hated that. He wanted everybody who had a job to do it right. The physios, the catering staff, the travel staff – it didn’t matter. If you were employed by the club and you had a job to prepare the players, Roy had an opinion on it and his opinion was right.

He had seen people take advantage of coming to Manchester United by just resting on their laurels. So he never allowed anybody to do that.

He was also incredibly clever. Roy is very calculated in what he says, how he says it, the timing of it, the tone of it. I mean that in the most respectful way – he understood what the team needed at all times.

Take Manchester United vs. Liverpool, the biggest game on the calendar. If he thought the team needed to see him be completely emotionless – sitting in his locker with his boots laced up, waiting for the bell – then that’s what he did.

If he felt he needed to maraud around the dressing room and make sure people knew their jobs and be a bit more vocal, he did that too. He would sometimes crack a little joke and a wry little smile when you wouldn’t expect it.

There was never one way and he would always change it in the biggest moments. Good leaders understand when a game feels different and you need to act differently.

Those big matches ignited Roy’s character and his willingness to lead the charge. That is when true leaders are measured – they don’t blink, they don’t shirk. And he never did. Never.

HALL OF FAME ENSURES MY CAREER IS OVER BUT WILL NEVER DIE 

The National Soccer Hall of Fame put on a heck of a weekend for my induction in Texas on Saturday – there was a welcome dinner, a concert and then the ceremony.

So many of my World Cup memories came flooding back and old friends reached out to say congratulations – including Sunil Gulati, who is a good friend and a former president of US Soccer. He couldn’t attend but it was special that he acknowledged it.

The only thing I wanted to get right in my speech was making sure that I paid homage to all of the people that helped me along the journey. And I think I did that.

As far as my achievements go in soccer, it ranks as close to the top as you can get. It felt like a beautiful cap on my career. It marked the end.

But the irony about the Hall of Fame is that you are, in fact, immortalized forever. It keeps your memory and your career alive. That, for me, was the most revealing part. My career is over but it now stands on its own, forever. That’s pretty special.