Newcastle United hero Les Ferdinand insists Kevin Keegan was never rattled by former Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson.
Ferdinand played under Keegan for the Magpies during the 1995/96 season and the first half of the 1996/97 season until he handed in his resignation in January of 1997.
Speaking on BT Sport's 'The Premier League Storybook with Jake Humphrey', Ferdinand reminisced about the players' reaction to Keegan's famous "I would love it if we beat them! Love it!" comment in a post-match interview.
"I'll always remember it and going in the next day, obviously it was the talk of the time in terms of everyone saying 'I'd love it, I'd love it, I'd love it' copying what Keegan said, but Keegan was always someone that wore his heart on his sleeve.
"And as a player, people always want players to wear their heart on their sleeves and show that they care. And I felt, to a man, there wasn't anyone in that dressing room that looked at Keegan and thought he'd lost it. They were all like 'yeah, we know how he feels because we feel like that.'
"I don't think it was a case of 'he's lost a psychological battle with Alex Ferguson', I don't think any of us looked at it like that. We just knew that was he was a passionate man. He wore his heart on his sleeve. He said what he felt. Everybody else made it a big deal."
