Former Arsenal forward Ian Wright has opened up on how ex-team-mate Patrick Vieira used to prepare to face Manchester United and Roy Keane.
Vieira and Keane were arch-enemies during their playing days as Arsenal and United competed for major domestic honours.
Their rivalry boiled over in February 2005 when the two captains clashed in the Highbury tunnel before a Premier League fixture.
“It was the Keane-Vieira rivalry,’ the former England striker told the BBC MOTD podcast.
“I remember Patrick’s demeanour and intensity changing in training in the week leading up to the game against United.
“He went up a notch, a lot sharper. It was brilliant to watch.
“For the two players that they were, the incident in the tunnel was brilliant for those times of great players going at it. They were just winners.”
While former Newcastle forward Alan Shearer added on the tunnel incident: “You could see it, Roy was desperate to go onto the pitch saying: 'get out there and we will see '.
“The number of times people have said they are going to take you out on the pitch or offered to fight you in the dressing room.
“Some of the stuff that was going on when I was a 17-18 year old kid at Southampton, there were proper fights in the dressing rooms, sometimes between players and their own manager.”
