Less than three months since the World Cup, and the book is out and the gruesome controversy revisited. Far from being repentant, Keane has rubbed the salt in and spread his anger to Jack Charlton, former club colleagues, and presumably now very former Irish colleagues. What personal demons drive this man? Even the World Cup of 1994 was "a bloody nightmare".
Little is added to the story of the last World Cup, except for the impression that Keane arrived at it already very angry. The subsequent exchanges over five-a-sides and hard pitches now sound absurd. In the corridor he tells McCarthy: "I've had enough. I want to go home". Just like that. This is your Captain speaking. "This is not what I had trained my balls off for all season," he says. A telling phrase, for surely it was United for whom he trained all season, a team which, to Keane's fury, didn't win any trophies. Might this have been the other key source of his rage?
Keane's stubbornness now makes quaint the notion that he might have offered some gesture during the famous RTÉ interview, when even to have "regretted" some of the "language" could have opened the door. But far from being an outburst, such aggression seems a permanent state of mind. One of the more amusing defences has been that his co-writer, Eamon Dunphy, may have over-spiced the language; useful as a tactic perhaps, but if anything Dunphy probably restrained Keane's Joe Pesci-like eruptions. Still, it is at least frank and refreshing for those old enough to remember when the only interesting thing about such books were their titles (such as The Good, The Bad and the Bubbly by George Best).
It is also more rounded, with early memories of Cork, trials in England and life at Nottingham Forest. There are vivid descriptions, such as that of playing in Giants Stadium against Italy in 1994 - a gladiatorial contest, furnace-like heat, the Italians folding - which could only have come from a meditative player. He is also good on his own qualities; being watchful, predatory, turning the game on and off.
But in some sections, such as those about Charlton's tactics, we hear Dunphy angrily breaking through. Indeed, the book begs questions about Dunphy's role in all of this. Having worked hard to leave behind controversy and build a reputation as a superb broadcaster and commentator, the Keane row seems to be a return to a level of drama which has consumed him. Perhaps he sees himself in Keane. But it is for others, analysts and psychologists, to untangle these relationships: Keane and Dunphy, Keane and McCarthy and perhaps most Faustian of all, Keane and Alex Ferguson.
The revelation which has caused most shock is that Keane set out, as an act of vengeance, to hurt Manchester City's Alfie Haaland. "I fucking hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that, you cunt."
Johnny Giles has said that he could be accused of the same in relation to Eddie McCreadie. But he did not put McCreadie out of the game for a year. And he and Eddie later had a drink over it. It would be hard to see Keane having a drink with Haaland. Or with anyone else, according to the AA part of this book. (Can "dry alcoholic" be factored into Roy's rage?)
And surely this is the difference between Giles's time and now. Before, it was all a bit of a laugh. Chopper Harris. Norman Bites Yer Legs. Now it is much more menacing. The players are fit and determined and the game has been transformed into a "win at all costs" confrontation. And Manchester United - Ferguson's MU - are a large part of that. Perhaps it is a large part of Keane as well.
It was MU which inculcated the idea that "everyone is against us", provoking the ABU mindset (Anyone But United) and an antipathy not shown, for example, to the equally dominant Liverpool of the 1980s. It is the shaven heads, the hounding of referees, the abuse of officials. After Cantona's kung fu attack on a fan, Paul Ince ran over shouting "we'll take you all on". Although interestingly, Ince is here upbraided by Keane for a lack of commitment. Like revolutionary Marxists or communal Christians, the MU disciples are eventually found wanting.
MU also leads the way in terms of money, with its corporate hospitality culture, endless changes in replica shirts and even a TV station. Keane protests against the "prawn-sandwich eaters", but this is a bit rich (literally), since he is so much a part of it. When he flew from Saipan to walk the dog, he still had the presence of mind to wear his diadora tracksuit.
It was this that sat uneasily with the Irish team, with the cheeky chappie, "all in it together" atmosphere. And my God, how well they did without him. If anything, indeed, the stubborn Irish quality seemed to increase in his absence.
How ironic too that in the days of his book's mega-exposure the new Irish boys are stuffing Finland 3-0, with goals from Robbie Keane (the other one) and Colin Healy, Roy's "almost" replacement for the World Cup. The King is dead, etc. Long live the Imposters.
FOR Keane did not lead his team into the World Cup; that is the bald fact which will remain. Club success is all well and fine, but the World Cup is the ultimate stage. Its moments are seared on everyone's memory. Even if United won the Premiership again, even if they won the Champions League again - a tall, tall order - it will always remain that he didn't lead his country out. (There is also the other question, glossed over here, of why he didn't go to a bigger stage at Juventus or Barcelona and leave Manchester, where he's been for so long.)
There is an awful sadness hanging over this book. Despite the touching pictures of Keane as a child lifting cups for Rockmount, and then lifting trophies for United, despite all the stuff about Old Trafford, the book's core, and thus its timing, is the last World Cup. It opens and closes with Saipan. Like a Greek tragedy, the ending is foretold and doomed. The last pages about McCarthy and the FAI read like an angry screed; even the last lines about looking forward to Man Utd's "next season" seem like a half-hearted after-thought.
Today you can buy those World Cup Call Cards with the players' faces on them and when you look at them all together on the poster you see the expectant expressions; smiling, bashful, game for anything. And then you look at Roy Keane's face, and its extraordinary frozen-eyed stare. Detached. It is if he has already had the row. "The damage is done", he said after the World Cup row, but perhaps it was done years ago, and certainly years before Saipan and stupid arguments over dry pitches and goalies for five-a-sides.
• Eamon Delaney 's most recent book is An Accidental Diplomat. His novel The Casting of Mr O'Shaughnessy has just been published in paperback by
New Island
Keane: The Autobiography. By Roy Keane, with Eamon Dunphy. Micheal Joseph, 294 pp, £17.99 sterling