Former Sunderland boss Roy Keane has hit out at Manchester United's Sir Alex Ferguson over comments in the wake of his departure from the Stadium of Light.

Keane barked: "Tony Cascarino says he will never work in management again! He never signed his new contract! He's grown a beard! He was remote. He was isolated. He had lost the plot. A beard, for God's sake! Does he think he is Jesus?

"Alex Ferguson, my old manager comes out and says, 'You never know what he is going to do next'. What did he think I was going to do? Go backpacking around Mexico? I have five kids. Football is in my blood! I'd just had enough at Sunderland. Things had changed. End of bloody story."

Keane did, though, shoulder the blame for errors in the transfer market, although he believed he had little choice.

"When we came up we had 13 or 14 players. You'll sign anybody who will play. I would be giving contracts to players I didn't rate that highly. I needed the bodies. You learn. Every manager does. There's an image of me as being intolerant of anything different to what I would have done late in my career, but I rolled with things."