Keane slams United kids

'You have to move on at a club like United. I see things on the training pitch, things that the public don't see and that the coaching staff would not always see. I'm in the middle of it and I can see it. I don't like what I can see. It hasn't just been the last two weeks or so, but maybe the last one or two months.

'Maybe that's why we have ended up getting performances like the one when we lost at home to Middlesbrough recently.

'All you can do is try and help players, but in the end they can only help themselves.'

Keane did not identify which players he was talking about as he spoke to United's inhouse television station, MUTV, last night.

But the 32-year-old Irishman's attack was clearly premeditated and designed to move Sir Alex Ferguson's players up another gear as they approach the title run-in.

He added: 'We fell behind in the league last year and put ourselves under a lot of pressure and, if I'm being honest, I can't see Arsenal slipping up like they did last year.

'Of course I'm worried that we have lost five times and Arsenal haven't lost at all.

'If you want to win any championship the fewer games you lose the better. We are just putting ourselves under so much pressure.

'The gap that is between us now can't get any wider.

'I have seen over the years players who think you can slacken off in training and then turn up at Old Trafford on Saturday and just switch on the light.

'You can't. You have to train hard all week and then do it on Saturday.

'As soon as players get 10 matches behind them they get their decent contract and their agent and their bits and pieces and they slacken off.

'They lose that five per cent. That's all it is. They think they have done something in the game and they have done nothing.

'I judge players when they have done it over 10 years. Not one year. There have been hundreds of those around, but they have disappeared.

'It's a fine line between winning trophies and not winning trophies. It's unbelievable.

'You need to be focused on what you are doing in training, what you are eating, who you are hanging out with, whether you are resting enough.

'All that comes into the equation when you're at a club like United.

'It's a short career, just stay focused for that short period. You can chill out when you have retired. Manchester United should be 24 hours a day.'

One United player who admits he has under-performed this season is Brazilian World Cup-winner Kleberson, 24. The midfielder has only started 11 games for the club he joined in the summer but has vowed to improve.

He said: 'I am quite sure that Manchester United fans have not seen the best of me yet. I have plenty more to offer, that is definite.

'My ambition is to try and reproduce the kind of form I showed in the World Cup, even better if I can.

'When you come to a team like United you always want to play.

'I have to cope at the moment with not playing as often as I would like.

'But this is my first season in England and so I will take this as the year to adapt myself. In the second year I think I will be freer to play football.

'I will also speak better English which will help on the pitch. This is very much a learning lesson.'