Roy Keane slams Aston Villa, was stunned by this defect during his time at club

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The former Villa assistant manager says he could not get his head around how little suffering defeat seemed to bother the club’s players.

Former Aston Villa assistant manager Roy Keane has become the latest person to stick to boot in on the relegated club, telling the Sun that he was stunned during his time at Villa Park by how easily and happily the players would get over a defeat.

During his playing career, Keane was a man used to winning – the Irishman won seven Premier League titles, four FA Cups and the 199 Champions League during his 12 years at Manchester United.

However, he experienced an entirely different culture during his brief stint as Paul Lambert’s assistant at Villa Park in 2014, where he spent five months in the dugout alongside the manager.

Villa started last season positively, going unbeaten in their first four matches with three wins, but they did not win again until early December, and by the time Keane left in late November the club was on a n eight-match winless streak whch had included a run of six defeats in a row.

Keane is never a man to mince his words, and he has delivered a typically frank assessment of what he felt was the main problem with the side during his short-lived spell.

The 44-year-old told the Sun: “[At United] we had a culture where, if you were beaten on a Saturday — people talk about bouncing back and moving on quickly — but Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, lads would still be fuming, and I loved that.

“When I went to Aston Villa, Paul Lambert said to me, ‘We have a policy where, if we have a bad result at the weekend, we stew on it for 24 hours and move on quickly’.

“And I said, ‘Well, I can’t do that’. For me, it might be closer to 24 days. Obviously, Villa were used to it, I wasn’t. I couldn’t understand the environment where everyone is laughing and joking on the Monday after a bad game.”

Years of struggles on and off the pitch have finally come around to bite Villa this season, and the club were relegated with four matches to spare last weekend after a dismal campaign in which they have won just three league games.