In Focus Daniel Taylor talks to the 'new' Roy Keane whose voice is laced with sorrow when he talks about his future in football

Manchester United inch apart their gates for a media open day and the players traipse in with suspicious faces and catwalk collections. Fabien Barthez is ahead in the Dubious Fashion Stakes, but there is competition, serious competition. Ryan Giggs is in the sort of motorcycle jacket only David Beckham could get away with. Juan Sebastian Veron is struggling to breathe in a top so skin-tight it is tempting to wonder whether it is actually spray-paint.

And then there is Roy Keane: no Armani nor Prada nor Gucci here. Not a single designer label, in fact, unless you count the Diadora flash on his white pumps. Just a baggy T-shirt, tracksuit bottoms and a sheepish smile. The days are long gone when Keane could be found regularly in Manchester's glitterati quarters, once picking out a £11,000 watch after misreading the price tag as £1,100 and, in a moment that still makes him cringe, signing the credit-card slip rather than owning up to the store assistant.

This is New Keane, the post-Saipan, post-McCarthy, post-McAteer version who, word has it, is no longer prone to volcanic fits of temper, will never be sent off again and is putting into practice what he learned from anger-management books he has been reading. This, allegedly, is the Keane who will be on his best behaviour in tomorrow's League Cup final against Liverpool and plans to steer clear of controversy for the rest of his career, however long that is. Allegedly.

We will miss him when he's gone. Football needs its bad guys to go alongside the cliched claptrap of those who see nothing and say even less and, love him or loathe him, Keane has enriched our game with his part-endearing, part-psychotic brand of win-at-all-costs football. A man who once described himself as "the robot, the madman, the winner".

It is just a shame his creaking joints may mean a premature end. He is 31 and when he talks about his future his voice is laced with sorrow.

"People say I could play well into my 30s and all that, but that's nonsense talk," he says, a sentence to chill the blood of any United fan. "It's sooner rather than later that I will be looking to leave it. In my mid-30s, for instance, I think it will be very, very unrealistic I will be playing."

In which case he is starting to have a few regrets. He has, after all, missed 29 games through suspension for United. And you sense there is a big part of him that wishes he had not been so indifferent to previous successes at Old Trafford.

"I move on very, very quickly, probably within four or five seconds of winning something. It'll be the same on Sunday. Even getting the trophy, you want to get it out the way and get back. It can be a nuisance. You have won the game and then you're waiting for everybody, the officials are getting ready, half the stadium is empty and it's a bit of a nonsense type of thing. Okay, that's part of it and it's great for our fans. But it would be better just to get on with it. Pity they can't give you the trophy in the dressing-room."

It is hard to see the men in suits at the sponsors agreeing, but when has Keane been one of football's romantics?

"I look back on defeats rather than victories. That's what keeps you going. If you want to look back and say, ah, it was great to win that, then that's going backwards. Yeah, if we beat Liverpool it will be great, but I will be thinking about Wednesday's game against Leeds very, very quickly.

"It's the way the world works. Business people do a deal and next day they are up at half six trying to do another. It's me, right back to playing for Rockmount juniors. We won six doubles in a row when I was nine to 15. Straight away it was a case of 'Right, then, next season . . .' The time to look back on days like Sunday is when you retire, even if it's harder to remember things three years down the line."

Three years? So retirement before 2006?

"Hey, I never said 'three years'," he protests. "I said 'four years down the line'. You're putting words in my mouth."

That sheepish smile again.

"Seriously, I haven't got a clue. I've three years on my contract and people think that'll be it. Might be before or might be after. All I can do, and I mean this, is look at the next match. The injuries have taken their toll, y'know."

This is getting into dangerous territory. Even in the afterglow of Tuesday's 3-0 defeat of Juventus, Keane had bristled when asked about this in the Stadio delle Alpi. Today, however, he expands: "Some players never have any injuries. Look at Denis Irwin: he never had an operation in his career and that's why he's still playing. Even Laurent Blanc: I think he got a few knocks, not many. I'm not so lucky."

He now needs two days of rest between games and has a fitness instructor who takes him through two hours of stretches after every match. His right hip will be replaced before he is 45. At the back of his mind are the words of his surgeon, Richard Villar: "I will be glad if you get back playing, full stop."

No wonder he has adapted his role. The old Keane, the marauding midfielder, has been replaced by a more withdrawn, less effective player, one who might eventually be deployed as a full-time centre-half.

"It was like he had a top hat and tails on," says Alex Ferguson of his captain's performance in defence against Juventus.

"I've had to change," Keane acknowledges. "Besides, there are a lot of outstanding centre midfielders here. People say Nicky Butt is understated but the people who know football understand how appreciated he is. Phil Neville and John O'Shea have come in superbly. Seba Veron has shown a lot of responsibility. I can't do that running any more."

No injury in the world, however, could diminish his sense of purpose.

"Winning nothing last year was bad enough. If there is nothing again and we haven't done the business for two years - Jeez, that's unacceptable. We have to win on Sunday. The fact it's Liverpool - we really have to win.

"We're five points behind Arsenal, out of the FA Cup, and the European Cup is always hard to win. When you turn 31 and have had my injuries you think, bloody hell, I need to get as many trophies as I can. A couple of years ago I wouldn't say I was getting blasé about it, but you do take it in your stride."

Retirement will not be easy and he winces talking about it. But before then one senses there will be plenty more to be heard from Roy Keane. ...