Roy Keane has been branded a “coward” and a “complete mess as a football manager” as he prepares for the official launch of his latest autobiography amid some corrosive criticisms of his own perceived inadequacies and the allegation that he is driven in part by jealousy of others.

Pablo Couñago, the former Ipswich striker, hit out after learning via the Guardian that he had been heavily criticised in Keane’s book in a chapter about the former Manchester United captain’s time in charge at Portman Road. Keane, who admits his relationship with the Ipswich players was often fractious and once resulted in a physical confrontation with Jon Walters, is unsparing in his criticisms, accusing Couñago of being lazy and uncommitted and saying he was another player with whom his relationship almost descended into violence.

Couñago believes the real reason why Keane did not like him was because he was envious of the player’s strong relationship with the club’s supporters and his response, delivered to Ipswich’s TWTD fans’ website, is withering in its assessment of his former manager.

“It seems like he needs to criticise players, managers and directors to keep selling books as he is not able to do anything else in football,” Couñago said. “It is a very sad ending for a person that was so big as a player. As I told him once, I think he is a complete mess as a football manager. As he has said in his book, he wanted to hit me, but behind his appearance there’s a coward. I just hope he can find happiness in his life as, in my opinion, being that miserable must be very mentally draining.

“The love and respect I feel for Ipswich and its fans is something he will never feel. I could say lots of awful things about him but I don’t feel right speaking about him, I feel sorry for him. That’s why, whatever he says about me, I don’t take offence, even though he’s not telling the truth about me.”

Keane, now the assistant manager for Aston Villa and the Republic of Ireland national team, had branded Couñago as “dead lazy” and recalled watching DVDs of Ipswich’s performances before he took the job and the player’s attitude was of someone who “looked like he was going down a coal pit for 10 hours”.Keane’s book, The Second Half, also tells one story about angrily berating his striker after a reserve match when he was “fucking awful” and the argument almost getting out of hand.. “I went down to the dressing room after the game and had a go at him. He went: ‘Well, how are we going to win anything with you as manager?’ I nearly physically attacked him – but I didn’t.”

Couñago, now playing for FC Honka in Finland, also spoke to TWTD last week when the subject of Keane came up again. “I don’t know if it was because he didn’t want me to have that good relationship with the fans, because he said to me he never understood the relationship I had with the fans, why they sang my name, why they loved me,” Counago said. “I think it annoyed him. It was a big surprise for me, how it looked like he was jealous of that. For me it was like ‘what’s going on here?’, someone like Roy Keane, one of the biggest names in Manchester United history, and now he is getting annoyed because the people like me. He was the kind of person who could have everything and was never going to be happy. They look so big and strong standing there but really they are weaker than anyone.

“Ipswich was like a big family and there was a good atmosphere around the training ground and he changed that. There wasn’t that feeling, a good atmosphere to work in, a good atmosphere of happiness. He is the kind of person who thinks he knows everything. When such difficult characters go into management you have to do whatever they say or life is going to be difficult. He won everything as a player but when he tried to do it as manager there was nothing.

“After the Ipswich job he didn’t get another job for a while because the other clubs start to know what you are like. He’s better as an assistant because he doesn’t have to do anything and he can be kept to one side.”