‘In my defence…’ – Roy Keane doubles down on infamous ‘baby’ jibe towards Andy Robertson

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Roy Keane has remained unrepentant about his infamous branding of Andy Robertson as ‘a big baby’ during a match between Liverpool and Arsenal in April 2023.At half-time in the teams’ Easter Sunday fixture at Anfield, the Scotland captain stopped to speak with assistant referee Constantine Hatzidakis, who responded by elbowing him in the face, much to the left-back’s disgust.On punditry duty for Sky Sports that afternoon, Keane showed the then-Reds defender no sympathy by repeatedly calling him a ‘baby’ over his indignation at the altercation with the official.Keane doubles down on calling Robertson a ‘baby’Robertson was face-to-face with the former Manchester United captain on the latest episode of Stick to Football, and unsurprisingly the incident from three-and-a-half years ago was brought up.Keane doubled down on what he said that as he reflected: “Players have to remember – and this is not an apology – when in the studio, we can have long days, can’t we? It can be a bit flat, a player can do something and you’re agitated by a long day.”The now-Tottenham Hotspur left-back replied: “The first two babies were alright.

The third was one too far!”Image via Sky SportsThe Irishman responded to that in a light-hearted manner by saying: “In my defence, traffic all the way to game, and what have you, but they’re [his fellow pundits] not saying anything.“You’ve got to say something, so that’s why I said the last ‘baby’. They’re all staring at me like, ‘Say something’.

Am I right?”Want more Empire of the Kop coverage? Add us as a preferred source on Google to your favourites list for news you can trustCompletely unnecessary from KeaneThis was Keane’s chance to show contrition for his needless defamation of Robertson, who was culpable of no wrongdoing whatsoever, but instead he chose to fob it off with a lame excuse about the silence of his fellow pundits and the journey to Anfield that day.The then-Liverpool defender had every right to be annoyed at being elbowed in the face by Hatzidakis – imagine the media furore there would’ve been had it happened the other way around.It was disappointing from the Sky Sports pundit to go for the easy option of a headline-grabbing soundbyte rather than making any proper attempt to understand why the player – who was booked by Paul Tierney for his trouble – would’ve felt aggrieved.Then again, Keane has plenty of previous when it comes to withering remarks about teams and players – not just the Reds, but plenty of others as well.Thankfully, Robertson would end the day with a smile on his face as Liverpool battled back from 2-0 down to earn a valuable point against an Arsenal team who were in the thick of a title race at the time and came up narrowly short to Manchester City (oh, doesn’t that sound familiar to us…)