Over the years, you come to learn that everyone who has spent time with Roy Keane has a story. They are usually told as a reminder of his hair-trigger sensibilities. It doesn’t always end well and, if the teller of the story is being honest, it is inevitably Keane with the devastating put-down or unintended moment of dark comedy that wrong-foots everyone in his company.



The yoga teacher, for instance, who passed him in the corridor at Nottingham Forest’s training ground one day last season and made the mistake of saying to Keane that he must have been pleased with Manchester United’s result the previous night.



It was the morning after United had qualified for the Champions League quarter-finals at the expense of Paris Saint-Germain. They had done so in exceptional circumstances, losing the first leg 2-0 at Old Trafford before winning the return fixture 3-1, with the decisive goal from Marcus Rashford in the fourth minute of stoppage time. It was...