Roy Keane slammed the "delicacy" of modern footballers following Declan Rice's request for fans and media to be more positive in their appraisals of England players.
Gareth Southgate's Three Lions sit top of Group C heading into their final group stage clash against Slovenia and have already qualified for the knockout stages.
Even so, England have been the subject of fierce criticism in the days following their sluggish 1-1 with Denmark, a performance that only exacerbated qualms over England's faculty following a narrow 1-0 win over Serbia to begin their Euro 2024 campaign.
The ensuing days have resulted in a heated back-and-forth between players and media over the nature of the criticism. England captain Harry Kane came out to defend the team in the wake of uncensored comments from Gary Lineker, while Rice found himself beseeching fans and media for more positive dialogue to encourage the team.
Speaking to ITV, Rice said: "I don’t know why we feel like it's such a negative thing. We’re talking like we’re going out of the tournament here. We’re top of the group, we need to stay positive, stay upbeat. Let’s have some positivity going into games.
"Let’s give players the best confidence in the world. Players like Phil Foden, Bukayo Saka, Jude Bellingham, tell them they’re the best players in the world. Make them read that and think ‘I’m going to go out there and perform and give it absolutely everything', rather than reading the negative comments sitting on their mind and then thinking that they can’t play a certain way. That’s the way I think about it. And I’m sure we have enough of them people as well which is good."
But Keane vehemently disagreed with the Arsenal midfielder, blasting his sentiments while on punditry duty ahead of kick-off on Tuesday night.
"The modern player seems to be a bit more delicate to criticism, I know there's more of it because of social media particularly, but again these players - I judge players by actions," Keane said.
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"And we know how quickly football changes. If England put on a good performance or win tonight. Declan Rice is talking about 'show some love'. Listen, come on, it's serious stuff. This is football stuff. People have made huge sacrifices to travel.
"You get the love back when you perform. We all played at a decent level and when things are going great people are patting you on the back, but the reality is if you're not performing you get criticised."
Rice started again for England in midfield against Slovenia, though this time he was partnered with Conor Gallagher following an unconvincing experiment featuring Liverpool right-back Trent Alexander-Arnold shoe-horned into the position.
England reached the final of the last Euros, losing to Italy in a penalty shoot-out. And during his interview with ITV, Rice also spoke about the pressure he and his teammates are under given the expectations.
“We are all so desperate to do the country proud,” he said. “We are all so desperate to win, to be leaders, to go out there and give people memories for lifetimes and sometimes I maybe feel like we put too much pressure on ourselves where we could just go out there and let it just take care of ourselves.
“There’s going to be that pressure. This is England, a major tournament. But, look, this is our job and this is what we have to deal with. At the end of the day, it’s us, we’ve played in high-pressure games, high-pressure environments.”
Victory over Slovenia will ensure England finish top of Group C, though Slovenia will present a heady test having caused both Denmark and Serbia problems.
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