Roy Keane has his say on England isolation frustration after Mason Mount, Ben Chilwell, Billy Gilmour conversation

Tom Doyle22 June 2021

Roy Keane was left perplexed that Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell could have spent long enough with Billy Gilmour to be forced to self-isolate... because the former Manchester United captain can barely stand to talk to anybody for more than five minutes.

Mount and Chilwell are “gutted” to have to sit out England’s Euro 2020 clash against the Czech Republic after the pair went into self-isolation following interaction with Chelsea team-mate Billy Gilmour, who tested positive for coronavirus.

The Three Lions’ preparations for Tuesday’s final Group D match were thrown into chaos when it emerged that the pair had been in contact with the Scotland midfielder, who returned a positive Covid-19 test following Friday night’s Group D match.

Mount and Chilwell will now miss the pool decider at Wembley and could also be unavailable for England’s last-16 match, with qualification assured although their place in the group is to be decided.

Asked if the sitation was avoidable, Keane said on ITV: “I think the only thing I’d be critical of is why would you want to speak to an opposition player - I don’t care if he’s your team-mate or not - for over 20 minutes?

REUTERS

“I very rarely speak to anybody for over five minutes... after a game where you’ve just been to war against somebody, why you’d want to chat to somebody for that long.

“They could have used a bit more common sense.”

Asked if his wife got more than five minutes’ conversation at a time, Keane replied: “Never.”

Scotland’s squad have been under the PHE umbrella, having stayed in Darlington and used Middlesbrough’s training ground.

However, no other members of the group have been required to self-isolate following Gilmour’s positive test.

Former Czech goalkeeper Petr Cech, now technical and performance advisor at Chelsea, questioned the logic behind such a scenario.

Writing on Instagram, Cech said: “Please could someone help me understand how is it possible Mason Mount and Ben Chilwell - both with negative tests - have to isolate after they got in contact with Billy Gilmour.

“While the entire Scottish team who shared the dressing room, hotel, coach and plane while travelling, dinning room, meeting room, is allowed to play the game without any problem because they returned the required negative tests?

“What is the difference between them returning the same test results? It is incomprehensible.”

Additional reporting by PA.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in