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Mido has recalled his strange lunch date with Roy Keane when the then-Sunderland boss tried to wine and dine the striker and tempt him to Wearside before he joined Middlesbrough.

Gareth Southgate signed the Egyptian striker for Boro in the summer of 2007 - but only after Roy Keane had tried - and failed - to take the frontman to the Stadium of Light.

"I never worked with Roy Keane, but he took me for lunch," said Mido, taking up the story as a guest on talkSPORT.

"He wanted to convince me to come and sign for Sunderland just before I signed for Middlesbrough when I was at Tottenham.

"My agent at the time, Mino Raiola, said, 'Mido, Roy Keane wants to have lunch with you and show you the training ground'.

"I went to Newcastle Airport, he came to pick me up in his Range Rover, we went to Sunderland and he took me to Pizza Express."

Over that pizza, Mido decided that Keane and Sunderland wasn't for him.

"I was very surprised that he didn't talk to me much," says the former striker.

"Normally you take the player to lunch and try to talk to him to try to convince him to sign for the club, but he was very quiet. I knew straight away that we can't work together, we will end up fighting.

"He was talking to me and looking at the ceiling, I knew straight away that it will never work."

Boro won the battle to sign Mido but will wish they didn't. He scored just seven goals in 32 appearances in two and a half years at the club.