Yeah I get all that, I was around back then. Players like Ruddock, Wise, Keane etc.. are partly the reason the rules have been changed to protect players.
But I like Keane and for all his faults I generally think (though I'm clearly biased) he's an honourable guy. I'd still expect him to be able to hold his hands up and apologise, especially after his career had finished.
His claim he tried to hurt him but not injure him is horse-shit, honestly. Sure, he definitely could've done more damage if he'd tried to snap his leg. But the ferocity of that challenge could have easily buggerred up his knee for life.
It was a horror tackle indeed, but the fact that Utd had dominated the league for so long back then, meant the reaction from opposing fans and media was always going to be a little over the top when one of our players was involved.
Stuart Pearce was slightly before that period, but whenever he did a leg-breaker on someone, it was almost celebrated as he was playing at teams that were not dominating, was an English hero and was not a hate figure at most clubs.
On top of that I think Keane was probably the most hated player outside Man Utd, and one of the most loved at Utd, because he was the guy to go in hard against opposition players, if we were in a violent war with another team. So anything involving Keane was gonna get extra attention.
Heavy tackles were often celebrated and admired in that period, as much as a brilliant piece of skill. If your player could hurt an opposing player but make it look like an honest tackle, then it was often applauded.
Anyways no justifying it at all, but that particular tackle gets a lot more scrutiny and attention then similar horror tackles during the same period, but having a hatchet-man in your team was very much part of the game back then - Viera, Ruddock, Gattuso, Duncan Ferguson, Julian Dicks and then Stuart Pearce and Vinny Jones a little before then etc