Robbie Keane has all but ruled out a mid-winter return to the Premier League with the 34-year-old saying he is extremely tempted by the offers he has had from England but admitting that he needs to rest up after what has been a demanding year on all fronts.
The Republic of Ireland skipper was speaking in Tallaght stadium where his current club LA Galaxy will play a pre-season friendly against Shamrock Rovers on Saturday, February 21st, apparently at their striker's behest.
“It’s something that we discussed for a few years, that it would be nice to go and play a game in Ireland. They asked me who would I like to play against and, being from Tallaght, this probably made more sense than anything else,” he says.
Good opportunity
“But it’s more for the Irish people really than just one specific team. It’s for everybody that’s supported myself personally, but unfortunately can’t get to watch the Galaxy.
"And it's a good opportunity to come over. We're going to be in pre-season in Sweden [where there is a commercial tie-up with Hammarby].
"It made sense to have a game somewhere in Europe. They asked me and I'm delighted to get a game in Ireland."
Keane spent quite some time answering a direct question about his future at Galaxy without actually making any clearer his intentions, but his apparent enthusiasm for bringing Galaxy to his old neighbourhood certainly suggests he intends to be a part of the American club’s travelling party.
He has a year left on his contract, with the club having the option to extend it by one more year.
However, Keane says he is determined to play on for another “three or four years” and that comments a few weeks ago where he seemed to raise the possibility of playing elsewhere were made with his long term-future in mind.
“I never said I was going to leave the Galaxy,” he says.
Long term
“I need to see what’s best for myself in the long term. I see myself playing for the next three or four years, touchwood without any injury. I was being honest, too honest perhaps. But I don’t want to see myself going into a year with the Euros next year and wondering what’s going to happen.”
Having said that, he maintains that “it’s not about me trying to get a [new] contract. It’s about me looking to the time of the Euros in 2016 knowing I’ll be playing for another two or three years. I’m not here trying to get a contract. I’m going to sit down and see what I’m going to do.”
There was more, plenty of it, but if none of it was about gently hinting that Galaxy might offer him the longer-term prospects that he wants, then it’s not entirely clear what it was about.
Certainly, he didn’t bite when asked about perhaps wanting to return to England or finish his career back home in Dublin.
It would be hard to blame him for making the most of the hand he currently holds at the American club.
Keane has not only enjoyed remarkable success with Galaxy, he has driven it, comfortably eclipsing other big, occasionally bigger, name international signings.
He has racked up a string of personal accolades this season as his team won its third MLS Cup since the Dubliner touched down in LA towards the end of the 2011 campaign.
During that first season, he returned to England for a spell at Aston Villa, scoring three goals in seven games for the midlands outfit and he sounds almost tortured as he discusses the possibility of dipping his toe back into the Premier League pond one more time.
“I’ve been asked to go on loan,” he says, confirming that he has had several offers, most of them from the English top flight.
“Medically, I’ve been advised to take a break, but I do get the itch.
“I’ve got the itch now, 100per cent. I was playing five-a-side with me mates 10 days after the [MLS] Cup final. That’s the way I am. I do get tempted because I do love playing and I feel the best I’ve felt.”
When it’s put to him that he sounds like a man about to defy medical advice, he comes close, it seems, to agreeing, before eventually pulling back: “Yeah, well, I’ve done that before but I need a break . . . I definitely need a break.
“There’s a temptation because I just love playing football. There’s a temptation but I just can’t see it happening, to be honest with you. It’s not going to happen. There’s certainly a temptation because I just love playing so much.”
Operations
“I’ve spoken to people and medically it wouldn’t make any sense for me. It wouldn’t probably be fair at this moment after what I put myself through after the operations that I’ve had. I want to continue for a long time and this is probably my best bet, but as I say it’s tempting but it’s not going to happen.”
Well, that’s that safely put to bed then.
On the international front, he had the unfamiliar experience in Scotland of not starting a competitive game he was fit to start for the first time in more than a decade but there is certainly little hint of Ireland's leading scorer fading quietly away now in order to concentrate on coaxing those extra couple of club seasons out of his body.
“Just continue to keep playing, keep scoring goals,” he says when asked what he needs to do to convince Martin O’Neill he should still be a first-choice striker. “You’re judged on scoring goals and as long as I continue to do that, then there won’t be a problem.”
But can he now expect to start as many games for his country in 2015?
“I expect to play all the time, like I do for any team.”
It’s confident stuff, evidence of how Galaxy have been as good for Keane just as he has been good for them, and it’s hard to see why either would want to prematurely part company.
