Claude Makelele, Patrick Vieira and Roy Keane were the heartbeat of title-winning sides of yesteryear. Alex Hess explains why their former clubs' most recent engine-room acquisitions could have a similar impact
John Nash, Robin Williams, Christopher Wallace: genius often comes with a flipside. In football, the pitfalls tend not to be so drastic, but they're there all the same. It’s no stretch to use the G-word to describe Roy Keane, Patrick Vieira and Claude Makelele. They were sublime for a time, but the price of their genius was the impossibility of replacing it. At Manchester United, Arsenal and Chelsea, the past decade has told similar tales.