Former Manchester United skipper Roy Keane launched a scathing attack on Manchester City full-back Kyle Walker after he went to ground following a confrontation with Rasmus Hojlund.

Walker and Hojlund went head-to-head after the defender had blocked the striker’s run during the first half of Sunday’s Manchester derby at the Etihad Stadium with the England international collapsing to the turf after contact was made.

Referee Anthony Taylor issued both men with yellow cards after the 40th-minute incident, but Sky Sports pundit Keane felt the official could have gone further.

Asked if he would have given a red card, the ex-midfielder said: “Red card? Yes, to Walker.

“You don’t mind a bit of this, this is going to happen in the game, a bit of argy-bargy, of course. But I look at it. He’s obviously been blocked, but Walker.

“Of course it’s a foul, it’s a free-kick and that’s fine. Hojlund is not happy – that’s fine – and he goes over. How can Walker… Walker must be embarrassed. He must be embarrassed to go down like that, an experienced player.

“Listen, they say contact – look at this. I don’t know the guy and I’m embarrassed for him.”

Keane, however, was not convinced, adding: “Is he? I’m not so sure.”

After United’s late comeback sealed a 2-1 victory, Hojlund took to Instagram to share his views on the incident.

Alongside a picture of him butting heads with Walker, Hojlund wrote: “Manchester is red. Violets are blue. What a brilliant performance. But the Oscar goes to…”

Meanwhile, Keane’s former United team-mate Gary Neville praised manager Ruben Amorim’s surprise decision to drop Marcus Rashford and Alejandro Garnacho from the matchday squad.

Neville, who challenged the pair to use their exclusion as a watershed, told Sky Sports: “I want Marcus Rashford and Garnacho to come back stronger, take the message that they’ve been given this morning by going training at the training ground on a Sunday when no one else is there, I want them to take this in the right spirit and become the very best players for Manchester United.

“But what’s really clear, I don’t care who you are, whether you’re Andrei Kanchelskis, Ryan Giggs, David Beckham, Nani, whoever you are as a wide player at Manchester United, you’ve got to run that way as fast as you can, you’ve got to run back that way as fast as you can.

“And then the rest of it… To be fair, they’ve got the talent and they’ve got the ability, but if you don’t do that, there’s no place for you in the club, there’s no place for you in the team.”

Keane added: “Ryan Giggs and David Beckham were brilliant players, brilliant going forward. But you speak to anybody who’s played with them or played against them, and they ran back – and they had to run back because we wouldn’t have tolerated it.

“This idea of playing football, if it was all just about running forward, football would be great.”