Keane to keep good times rolling

Coca-Cola may have become unhappy with the way the League Cup was being treated by the bigger teams across the water over the last few years but for some sponsors the fact that the competition has provided many of the English game's biggest stars with the odd day off has been rather advantageous.

Take Diadora, who because of Manchester United's somewhat laid-back approach to the competition yesterday managed to put Roy Keane to work in a Dublin city sports store promoting their Christmas range of clothing.

Keane, recently named as the Premiership's Player Of The Month for October, put in a full 90 minutes for his boot manufacturers. He signed pictures and posed for endless photographs at the Lifestyles shop in the Jervis Centre and then, still smiling, pondered what lies ahead for his club and country with an equally anxious gang from the media.

Rarely have things been better in Keano-land was the general message for the afternoon. United are going well on all fronts, Ireland's progress so far this season has exceeded expectations and the 27-year-old midfielder is being widely hailed as the greatest thing to hit the scene since, well, since the self same player at the start of last season.

And the former bad boy has cleaned up his act a bit too, the new policy of staying out of trouble wherever possible helping him to become an ever-present in United's League and Champions League campaigns so far.

"It's important for me to do my best because I'm happy with the way things are going for me at United at the moment," explained Keane, "and if you get suspended it knocks you out of your stride a bit. The other thing is, that with the club winning at the moment, you don't want to miss a few games because if you're out for a couple, you might find it difficult to break back into things."

That, he realises, is a risk he is going to have to live with over the coming week or so for, while his club-mates take on Blackburn in the Premiership, he is one of the players who will be heading to Dublin to meet up with Mick McCarthy and whatever other Irish squad members manage to get away.

"I don't think we'll have any problems to be honest," smiles Keane. "We've always been sort of counting on missing this game and I think the manager (this appears to be the only way in which the player refers to Alex Ferguson) is better placed than a lot of others to replace us.

"Anyway, the manager mentioned to me a while back about leaving me out for a couple of games in order to give me a rest, it went out the window for while when Nicky Butt got suspended but with him back, he may have ended up resting for the Blackburn game regardless."

After next week's game in Belgrade there is a string of important club games to be considered, although Keane insists that the forthcoming game in Barcelona does not merit any special attention.

"Well we haven't really thought about it," he starts before there is mention of the hammering his club took there on their last visit to the Nou Camp. "Yeah, that was probably the worst defeat I've ever been involved with as a professional," he replied. "Revenge might be too strong a word for it, but I suppose it would be fair to say that we'll be looking to do ourselves justice out there this time."

And beyond that? "Well, we're trying not to think about it. The media are getting completely carried away over the Brondby games, but we're not. Last year we were pretty confident and we ended up getting beaten by Monaco, who were then well beaten by Juventus." Still, this time, Alex Ferguson might argue, his domestic trophy-winning machine has a newly restored engine for its Euro travels and he'll be hoping that might just make the difference.