Rangers fans may not want to know the news this morning of all mornings but Roy Keane still has the intention of fulfilling an ambition and playing for Celtic.

When Keane signed his new contract at Old Trafford, which keeps him a Manchester United player until June 2006, the noises were that Keane would end his career there. But Keane still has plans - plans, not dreams - of moving to Celtic then. He would be two months short of his 35th birthday and, providing his hip holds strong, feels he can still do a job in green and white. Given his reception here last night such a move would cause the sort of fuss that might make Neil Lennon shiver.

But Keane showed restraint as well as class in the face of blue antagonism - it was 77 minutes before a lunging tackle - though a good deal of it was subdued not just by Phil Neville's early strike but by Rangers' style under Alex McLeish. For this ever to have been a "Battle of Britain" in the headline sense Rangers would have had to rough United up, especially Keane. But Rangers play patient, pretty European football.

This was a huge night in the Irishman's life. The occasion may have been marketed as Alex Ferguson's first competitive return to Ibrox since he left Aberdeen, but Keane had special emotions as a Celtic supporter - and a high-profile one at that - coming to Ibrox.

This represented enemy territory and he was here as the leader of the opposition. The songs they sing at Ibrox are often called "party tunes" but it is no party Keane has ever wanted to be affiliated to. He will have known the reception awaiting and sure enough his every touch provoked boos.

While waiting in the tunnel last night Keane will have heard a refrain from that Belfast evening, the strains of Follow Follow, a loyalist anthem - "Celtic know all about their troubles, we will fight to the day is done" - and its seamless progression into Hello! Hello! We are the Billy Boys. It has that delightful chorus about being "up to our necks in Fenian blood". With his Co Cork sensibilities Keane might have thought that its prominence clashed with Rangers' Pride Over Prejudice campaign. Adverts for it were appearing at the same time on screens around the stadium. "We're bigger than racism and bigotry," it claimed and asked for "tolerance and understanding".

Any notion of that actually occurring ended as soon as Keane got his first touch. The catcalls were instant but unfortunately for Rangers fans Keane was crisp in everything he did. This meant that while his time on the ball was frequent it was also brief. In turn that meant no crescendo of abuse and one gets the impression that while the Copeland Road stand was happy to sing about Bobby Sands - "he's deed" - the significance of Irish history in Glaswegian football is probably lost on characters like Mikael Arteta and Zurab Khizanishvili.

You can understand their indifference, though Roy Keane might not.