Arsenal's surprise victory over Chelsea in Sunday's Community Shield, the traditional curtain-raiser to the English Premier League season, had some excited commentators tipping a bona fide title challenge from the Gunners this term.

Presumably, Roy Keane was not one of them. The former Manchester United hardman had already written off Arsene Wenger's side as more obsessed with "selfies and how their hair is than winning football matches".

And, given he spent most of his career engaged in a running verbal battle with various representatives of the north London club, it's unlikely he'll be revising his prediction on the back of their 1-0 win at Wembley.

"Ahhhh listen," Keane told the London Telegraph when asked if Arsenal could mount a serious challenge this season. "We've the same thing ... [every year]. There's too many Arsenal players interested in selfies, I think, whatever they are. Instead of focusing on winning Premier League titles, it's all about how their bodies look."

Either way, we salute the unceremonious manner with which Keane cut through the hype. Realistically, only three teams can win the title this season, and Arsenal are not one of them.

Of the league's 20 teams, 14 are at triple-figure odds to lift the trophy, and once again the best entertainment is likely to come from the interminable bickering of Wenger and Jose Mourinho or death-riding Raheem Sterling before the title race boils down to another two-way scrap between City and Chelsea.

Unfortunately, Keane does not have a Premier League managerial berth this season, having quit the assistant's role at Aston Villa to concentrate on his duties with the Republic of Ireland. So fans and newspaper editors alike will be denied nuggets of straight-talk like these, taken from his autobiography published last year:

On judging a man by his choice of music

"It might seem strange but you find out about characters when you look to see who's in charge of the music. A young lad might want to put on the latest sound; an older player might say: 'I'm the senior player' and put himself in charge.

"But I noticed none of the players [at Sunderland] were in charge of the music and this was a concern for me. A member of staff was in charge. I was looking at him thinking: 'I hope someone nails him here.' The last song before the players went on to the pitch was Dancing Queen by Abba.

"What really worried me was that none of the players – not one – said: 'Get that shit off.' They were going out to play a match, men versus men, testosterone levels were high. You've got to hit people at pace. F---ing Dancing Queen. It worried me. I didn't have as many leaders as I thought."

On the infamous tackle on Alf Inge Haaland

"I did want to nail him. I wanted to hurt him and stand over him and go: 'Take that, you c---'. I don't regret that. But I had no wish to injure him.

"Looking back, I'm disappointed in the other City players. They didn't jump in to defend their teammate."

On swapping the Premier League for Scottish football

"My first game [for Celtic] was Clyde away, in the third round of the Scottish Cup. We were beaten 2-1. It was a nightmare. I wasn't happy with my own game.

"After the game – the disappointment. As I was taking my jersey off, I noticed the Nike tag was still on it. When I got on the bus, John Hartson, a really good guy, was already sitting there and he was eating a packet of crisps – with a fizzy drink. I said to myself: 'Welcome to hell'."

On the correct way to settle your differences with a teammate

"I had a bust-up with Peter Schmeichel when we were on a pre-season tour of Asia in 1998. There was drink involved. There'd been a little bit of tension between us over the years, for football reasons.

"There was a lot of noise – Peter's a big lad. I woke up the next morning. I kind of vaguely remembered the fight. My hand was really sore and one of my fingers was bent backwards.

"It started coming back to me – the fight between me and Peter. Nicky Butt had been filling me in on what had happened the night before. Butty had refereed the fight. Anyway, Peter had grabbed me, I'd head-butted him – we'd been fighting for ages.

"At the press conference, Peter took his sunglasses off. He had a black eye. The questions came at him: 'Peter, what happened to your eye?'

"[Sir Alex Ferguson] told us that we were a disgrace to the club, and that we'd woken Bobby Charlton up, that Bobby had come out of his room and seen us.

"Peter took responsibility for the fight, which was good. I admired him for it. But Sir Bobby could have tried to break it up."

On his criteria for signing – or not signing – players

"Robbie [Savage] wasn't in the Blackburn team and I asked Mark Hughes if we could try to arrange a deal. Sparky gave me permission to give him a call.

"So I got Robbie's mobile number and rang him. It went to his voicemail: 'Hi, it's Robbie – whazzup!' like the Budweiser ad. I never called him back. I thought: 'I can't be f---ing signing that.'"