Roy Keane appeared to ramp up his feud with Bruno Fernandes as he shared a cryptic social media post.

The former Man United hardman has never been a big fan of Fernandes, regularly criticising him over recent years for a variety of issues, mainly surrounding his leadership, attitude and body language.

Things reached a head earlier on Monday though when the Portuguese star labelled Keane a ‘liar’ and revealed that he sought out his rival’s number to ‘have a word with him’ in the wake of misplaced criticism.

That came after Keane recently tore into Fernandes – who achieved a Premier League record 21 assists this season – on The Overlap for apparently admitting to targeting that accolade over the benefit of the team, but that was based on a misconstrued quote.

The playmaker had criticised himself for shooting sometimes when he should have passed against Nottingham Forest on May 17, but Keane interpreted this the wrong way round. He claimed that Fernandes had admitted to passing just to reach the assists record.

This led to Fernandes’ outburst, yet later on Monday the Irishman hit back in a peculiar social media post.

On his Instagram account, Keane shared a photo of a donkey that appeared to be roaring, with two lions hovering in the background.

It was combined with a caption that read: ‘Too much attention makes a donkey think he’s a lion,’ in what seemed to be a dig at Fernandes, who he had labelled as the ‘donkey’.

Speaking earlier in the day, Fernandes had expressed his frustration at Keane’s repeated pot shots.

‘I’ve always said I don’t mind criticism,’ he told The Diary of a CEO podcast. ‘I always take criticism from everyone and anyone and never reply to anyone whatsoever. People have an opinion, they think it’s good, bad or whatever.

‘What I don’t like is when people lie about things, and in this case, what you said about Roy Keane, basically, what he said is a lie.  Luckily for me everything is on record, imagine if it wasn’t, then people will think Bruno is always the guy trying to go for the assist.

‘My number creations is always the same. It’s not that I’ve been trying to reach the assists now, no, I’ve been creating chances since I came to the Premier League. My type of play hasn’t changed. Roy has seen the same Bruno.

‘I’ve always showed a lot of respect for Roy Keane and for everything he’s done for the club and everything he’s always said. I’ve never said something wrong.’

Fernandes continued: ‘I even asked Ole [Gunnar Solskjaer] his number to text him to have a word with him, to say “I don’t mind the criticism, I don’t like when people lie about the things that I say,” because this goes a little bit over the top of the things I think are acceptable.

‘I accept criticism. I accept he can say things I don’t like. That improves me. What I don’t like is that people make their own words on what I say. It’s not true. He can criticise me, kill me, say that I’m not good enough, that I’m not a good captain, not a good player for the club, whatever, it’s okay, I don’t mind.

‘It’s his opinion, I don’t like it, I’d prefer Roy Keane to give me some praise sometimes because I’ve achieved something not many players achieve.’

Fernandes set up Patrick Dorgu’s opening goal against Brighton on Sunday to bag his 21st assist of the season and surpass Thierry Henry and Kevin De Bruyne, who in their best campaigns had managed 20.

According to Squawka, the 31-year-old created a total of 136 chances throughout the season. The second-best, far away in the rearview mirror, was Dominik Szoboszlai on 78.

Meanwhile, Daily Mail Sport understands that United have started talks to keep Fernandes at the club amid interest from European and Saudi Arabian sides, who also made a move for him last summer.

Fernandes is only under contract until next year and has a £57million release clause, although the Red Devils do have the option to extend his deal by a further year and are desperate for him to stay.