As Kane prepares for international duty with Argentina, Keane will spend the start of this week at Champney Springs in Leicestershire, one of 45 players taking part in the PFA’s 12-week pre-season camp.
The initiative, now in its third year, aims to create a competitive environment for players who are out of contract and looking to find a new club.
At 33, Keane feels he has “a few years left” and has not given up hope of adding to his five senior Republic of Ireland caps, turning the tables on twin brother Michael by playing youth football for England and senior football for the country where his father was born.
“A couple of guys I know attended camp last season and spoke very highly of it,” Keane said.
“I almost feel like I’m part of the team and we’re leaving for pre-season training. There are so many personnel here: medical, coaching, administrative, media.”
“It’s quite competitive here and there are seven or eight games so clubs can see how you play. There’s an app that clubs can sign up for. It’s like the PFA transfer list – all our training data goes on it. Clubs can contact us directly so hopefully if you go somewhere you can get in straight away.”
Keen feels quite at peace with his situation. He was already out of contract once, in 2020, when Covid hit and Ipswich decided they did not want to exercise a one-year option due to the financial uncertainty at the time.
Keane eventually returned to Wigan, one of eight clubs he played for during his career, making 335 senior appearances and scoring 85 goals to date.
This was also the period when he changed his mental approach to the game.
This first devastating ACL injury would have been quite serious. But he also “torn his groin” in United’s FA Cup tie with Shrewsbury in February 2016.
It meant 17-year-old Marcus Rashford, not Keane, was on the bench for the Europa League match against Midtjylland three days later when Anthony Martial was injured in the warm-up and forced to withdraw.
Given his Louis van Gaal debut, Rashford scored twice and then added two more goals in the subsequent Premier League game against Arsenal.
“I went to America for the operation, landed in Philadelphia, turned on the phone and saw that he had scored two more,” Keane says.
At 23, Keane knew that day was the end for him at United; a club that he and his family supported and where he was confident he would become a first-team player.
Things got worse.
“It was hard to accept, but I needed to move on. I got a good move to Hull, who had just been promoted to the Premier League,” Keane said.
In his sixth game he suffered another anterior cruciate ligament injury and was sidelined for 14 months.
“It was devastating,” he said. “I missed the whole season and we were relegated. A lot of the young guys were still making good moves: Harry Maguire went to Leicester, Andy Robertson to Liverpool, Sam Clucas to Swansea.