Keane blasts Mainoo comment as he says Man Utd midfielder needs to knuckle down

Roy Keane blasted Kobbie Mainoo's brother after he wore a "free Kobbie Mainoo" t-shirt calling him an "idiot".

The 20-year-old’s lack of game time has been a major talking point this season, with the Manchester United homegrown star still waiting to make his first Premier League start of the campaign.

And one of the main talking points this week has been the midfielder’s half-brother Jordan Mainoo-Hames posting an Instagram story of himself at Old Trafford wearing a ‘Free Kobbie Mainoo’ top.

Now Keane has joined the debate over whether Mainoo should be playing more in Ruben Amorim's side, and he suggested he needs to be knuckling down and force the manager to play him.

Keane said that he "never felt" that he was a regular at United in the sense he would be an automatic pick under Alex Ferguson.

"Every day is your challenge to prove to the manager. And again, when that manager is picking a team on a Thursday or Friday, I want to train like a beast. And when you're writing that team, you go, he has to play. He's got to get that in his mindset," said Keane on The Overlap.

"And when he's got an idiot of his brother doing all that, we should even be giving his brother the time of day. Sometimes you're surrounded by the idiots, aren't you?"

And the United legend also couldn't understand the idea that Mainoo felt trapped at United.

Keane said: "It's bizarre, isn't it? He feels trapped. I saw Mainoo play for England against Ireland, when he starting doing well, against Ireland in the Nations League wasn't it?

"I watched him, England were much stronger than Ireland, this was in Dublin. And it was easy, it was 2-0 he was taken off after about 60 minutes. And I was watching a young player, see how he's doing at United making noise, I watching him closely, quality player.

"But I did look at him when he was taken off, England were cruising literally and he took about 10 minutes to walk off the pitch. I was like, get off the pitch. It was like it was a testimonial, he was just a young player making his way in the game.

"I know I might be nitpicking at stuff here, but I'm just trying to pick up traits of a footballer.

"And not long afterwards he done loads of photographs and modeling stuff. Now I know players have done that with us, Becks was doing that after maybe 100 games, Giggsy, they weren't doing it after six, seven, 10 games.

"So these are little things I might be looking at going, 'Well, I'm sure maybe the club's looking at it. I'm sure the manager might be looking at it."