Keane to leave with his dignity intact

Andrew Fifield suggests that Roy Keane has got the timing right as he looks like calling time on his stay at Manchester United.

Roy Keane is a man of few words, but when he talks, people listen. His rants have become almost an annual tradition and this year's tirade came with a twist. The prawn-sandwich chomping fans and Rolex-wearing team-mates can breathe again: this time, it is United themselves who have been hit by Hurricane Roy, and it is they who will have to cope with its legacy - Keane's departure from Old Trafford at the end of the season.

Rumours of the midfielder's unhappy relationship with his manager Alex Ferguson have been circulating since United's pre-season training trip to Portugal, but now they have added credence. Keane's decision to break the news of his impending exit on MUTV was pointed, given that the station was recently boycotted by Ferguson after perceived criticism of his tactics in a post-match discussion show.

But Keane is not bluffing. He means what he says, and he was honest enough to admit that the prospect of leaving United is painful. "There comes a time for everybody when they have to move on and I am prepared to play elsewhere," he said. "It wouldn't be an English team, though. Coming back to Old Trafford and going into the away dressingroom would be too hard to stomach." Keane's lengthy list of indiscretions has ensured that he has won few friends during his career, but his list of admirers is endless. A league which has been derided as uncompetitive and stale needs characters like Keane, who has never allowed his appetite for success to be sated. His eyes flash as dangerously as ever. His barked commands have lost none of their urgency. Only his legs have begun to buckle.

Keane will be sorely missed, but he is not alone. The midfielder's decision to shuffle off the Premiership stage comes just three months after his great adversary at Arsenal, Patrick Vieira, departed for Juventus. There are differences between their exits: Vieira was given a parting shove out of Highbury's marble halls by Arsene Wenger, whereas Ferguson would not dare to evict the one man at Old Trafford who could claim to have more support in the Stretford End than he. Vieira, at 29, is also sufficiently young to still make an impact at the highest level, while Keane would be happy to chew the cud in the rolling pastures of Celtic Park.

But it is fitting that these two dinosaurs should be rendered extinct at the same time. Such was the intensity of their rivalry that Keane seemed almost to be living a half-life after the Frenchman departed for Serie A, and now at least their chapter of Premiership history can be closed.

But this is a season of sad endings. Dennis Bergkamp's excellent form at the end of last year may have convinced Wenger to offer him a one-year contract extension but, at 36, he will not be granted another reprieve.

A clutch of Keane's Manchester United team-mates are also pondering their futures. Paul Scholes retired from international football in June 2004 to prolong his career at Old Trafford, but his form has flagged. He no longer makes those trademark darting runs into the area which provided United with so many crucial goals from midfield, and he was dropped by Ferguson for Saturday's victory at Fulham.

Ryan Giggs, too, has been forced to confront his own mortality. It seems almost inconceivable for those who remember Giggs's top flight debut in March 1991 as a coltish 17-year-old that he should be contemplating retirement, but Ferguson's faith in his one-time match-winner has wobbled. The Welshman has started just one Premiership game this season - despite signing a new two-year contract in the summer - and now terrifies opposition full backs with his reputation, rather than his footwork.

Perhaps the teary-eyed exit of all will be reserved for Alan Shearer. His lumbering display at Portsmouth two days ago made for painful viewing, if only because it was so far removed from the explosive performances which characterised his best years at Blackburn and Newcastle.

The turn of pace which traumatised a generation of defenders has long since sputtered and died, so Shearer relies instead on his battering-ram body. He may still claim the all-time scoring record at St James' Park - he needs six more to overtake Jackie Milburn's tally of 200 - but it is unlikely that he will do so in a blaze of glory.

Footballers rely on timing, but it is often the most gifted players who find it hardest to measure their moment of departure. Either their egos blind them to their own deficiencies or, as with Shearer, they become obsessed with passing one last landmark before riding into the sunset.

Keane, refreshingly, has avoided both these pitfalls. Whatever Manchester United achieve this season, their captain will leave with his dignity intact. He is truly irreplaceable.