Soccer: Roy Keane last night said he expected he would be leaving Manchester United at the end of the season, and strongly hinted that Celtic would be his most likely destination.

He announced last night that after 12 years at Old Trafford he did not expect to receive a new contract before his present deal runs out in June and would likely try to sort out a pre-contract agreement elsewhere in January.

Uppermost in Keane's thoughts is to spend a year at Celtic Park, the club he grew up supporting. Alex Ferguson has invited him to join United's coaching staff, but the midfielder said he had decided to make "a clean break", an announcement that will be followed by him making his availability known to Celtic manager Gordon Strachan.

"There's always a time to move on. My contract is up at the end of the season and I don't think the club will be offering me another one," he said. "I'd be surprised if they did and, if they were planning to, I think they would probably wait as long as possible, maybe until the end of the season. By then, though, I will already have made a decision in terms of what to do next. It will be too late because I might have sorted out something in January."

He made it clear he would not move to another Premiership club. Indeed, his announcement amounted to a come-and-get-me plea to Strachan. "When I say I might play for another team I don't necessarily mean an English team," Keane volunteered. "I think that would be hard for me to stomach. I wouldn't fancy coming back to Old Trafford and going into the away dressingroom."

Keane believes he can play on until the age of 37 but he is also aware that Ferguson hopes to bring Bayern Munich's captain Michael Ballack to Manchester when he becomes a free agent next summer. United will offer the Germany international a pre-contract agreement in January, just when Keane has envisaged instructing his solicitor Michael Kennedy to find him another club.

"I'd like to play on for another year or two but I don't think it will be at United," he said on MUTV. "It would be a good experience for me to play for another team, another country, another dressingroom. If I'm going to become a manager it would be good for me to experience a different environment.

"I'll be 35 in the summer and we've got a lot of decent young players coming through. There's a danger of staying on too long and maybe one or two people think I've stayed here a year or two too long anyway. If you follow your heart you want to stay as long as you can. But you've got to listen to your brain as well, and the body."

Keane was asked if he would change his mind if United offered him a new contract before the turn of the year. "That would be different but I'm not pointing a gun to anyone's head. I've never gone to ask for a new contract because I've always felt it's up to the club.

"I have to plan ahead and be prepared. Over the next year I will be looking to get all the coaching badges under my belt before looking at management.

"I think there would be an opportunity to do that somewhere else and my gut feeling is that it would be best to make a clean break. People have mentioned the possibility of coaching at United but that doesn't really appeal. It's not for me."

He did not say whether he had shared this information with Ferguson but his announcement will dismay the vast majority of United's supporters. Ferguson regards him as "the best player I've ever worked with" and, even if he were successful in bringing Ballack to the club, Keane's departure would be a serious setback.

Keane identified Alan Smith as a potential successor but Ferguson himself has already admitted the Republic of Ireland international is "irreplaceable". The unenviable task of finding a successor begins now.

Guardian Service