Roy Keane yesterday demonstrated his faith in Manchester United's ability to hit the jackpot this season by agreeing to defer talks on a new contract, until the summer.

Keane was due to commence negotiations shortly on a deal which at a reported £40,000 a week would make him the highest paid player in the club's history.

By postponing discussions until the summer, the hope is that he will be able to bargain from a position of even greater strength if United aspire to their great ambition of winning the European Champions League, the Premiership and the FA Cup over the next 12 weeks.

Any double from that permutation of three would be highly acceptable at Old Trafford. To succeed on all three fronts would, given the modern pressures of the English club season, amount to the greatest achievement in the history of the game across the Irish sea.

Keane's new image as one of the more pragmatic of the game's cult figures doesn't permit such brash predictions. He was at pains, however, to stress that monetary ambitions can wait until business on the park is complete.

"Hopefully there'll be two months of the close season to sort out a contract," he said. "It's not a priority at this time - winning is. I don't wish to be seen as doing anything to upset our concentration in that area."

Having watched Keane return stronger and more influential than ever from one of the most serious injuries in football, Alex Ferguson will have no compunction in making a strong case for the Irishman in his preliminary talks with the club chairman, Martin Edwards.

United's captain has, almost certainly, projected better passes and effected more decisive tackles at different times in his career than anything we saw from him in the defeat of Inter Milan on Wednesday, yet his overall performance, until he was betrayed by his legs in the final minutes, was probably the most crucial of his career.

For all the individual skills of Ryan Giggs, Dwight Yorke and a resurgent David Beckham, it was Keane who put it together for them in his pivotal role in midfield. At different times of calm and crisis, his was the influence which mattered most and the point is unlikely to be lost on Inter's coach, Mircea Lucescu, for the return game at the San Siro in a fortnight's time.

It emerged yesterday that Giggs broke his nose in a collision with Javier Zanetti, some 10 minutes before the end of the game. That accounted in part, perhaps, for his anonymity in the closing chapter of an absorbing drama, but Ferguson hinted yesterday that he may still play in Sunday's big FA Cup clash with Chelsea.

That game will give David Beckham an opportunity to build on Wednesday's outstanding performance, although it is highly unlikely that he will get as much licence from Graeme le Saux to indulge his talent as he enjoyed against a curiously inept Italian defence.

Beckham, only now beginning to emerge from the deep trauma of his experience in the World Cup finals last summer, took another significant step on the road to full rehabilitation when he approached Diego Simeone after the game and offered to swap shirts, a gesture which the Italians have us believe met with a suitable response from the battle-scarred Argentinian.

Whether that show of camaraderie extends to the second instalment of the European tie remains to be seen, but the certainty is that Inter are now going to have to dig deep into their resources if they are to retrieve a season gone disastrously wrong for them.

Ronaldo's recovery from an injury which has laid waste to countless columns of newspaper space remains as problematical as ever and few in the visiting Italian press contingent at Old Trafford were prepared to venture a firm opinion on his chances of regaining full fitness before March 17th.

Much more realistic, one imagines, is Lucescu's expressed hope that his team can somehow restrict Keane's domination of the game in midfield and thus take some of the pressure off a defence which at this point looks beyond imminent repair.

With Ronaldo back, the Italians could conceivably get among the English side's defence often enough to put a couple past Peter Schmeichel. The question is, can they stop United scoring again in the rarefied atmosphere of San Siro?