Paul Wilson in The Observer:
So, Roy Keane is in his last season as a Manchester United player.
Given that he is 35 next birthday, that hardly counts as a surprise and, given that he has his heart set on a career in management, it will be no great surprise either if he turns up on the Old Trafford payroll again at some date in the future.
The only real surprise is that he appears to have opted to put some distance between himself and United, to take a break and check the view from outside rather than hang around and wait to be groomed as Sir Alex Ferguson's successor.
That might appear to be the route of least resistance, although Keane, as we all know, has never been one to go with the flow. No dead fish he and, on closer inspection, his decision to make a clean break - assuming he goes through with it and it is not just a ploy to land a new contract - could be a typically wise one.
Keane is a hero to the United supporters just as Alan Shearer is to the Newcastle faithful. There is a crucial difference between the two prospective managers, though. Newcastle are still waiting for a messiah, someone who can lead them to the promised land instead of just giving them a distant sight of it, and Shearer can fill that role. Keane cannot easily promise to make Manchester United a whole lot better than they recently have been and the great danger for a player taking over a club where he has enjoyed success is that failure as a manager clouds the issue.
That is what happened to Graeme Souness at Liverpool, where he is rightly remembered as a great player but no longer recalled with any great affection.
Perhaps the overriding consideration for Keane, however, is that he simply does not know whether he will be any good as a manager. Hardly anyone does - look at the respective managerial experiences of Jack and Bobby Charlton - but if it is largely a process of trial and error then Old Trafford is probably not the ideal setting, even for someone as fearsomely confrontational as Keane.