Keane hid from Liverpool legend Dalglish after Man United decision left him seething

Roy Keane was ‘looking over his shoulder’ after call with Kenny Dalglish having spurned Blackburn for Manchester United.

Keane became British football’s record transfer when he left Nottingham Forest for Manchester in 1993 for £3.75million, but things could have been very different.

The Irishman will have no regrets at all about choosing United, who hijacked his move to big spending Rovers, to created one of the most dominant teams of all time, but the initial weeks were a little turbulent.

Keane had even shaken hands on a deal with manager Dalglish – a legend at rivals Liverpool – only for Old Trafford boss Alex Ferguson to jump in ahead of him.

“Contract talks were done [with Blackburn] into the evening and agreed a deal, shook hands,” he explained in an interview in 2017. 

“It was a Friday night and they said ‘Will you come back Monday when the office is back open’ because obviously it was the end of season I said ‘Yeah no problem’. 

Keane then went back to Cork for a few days and got a call from Fergie on Sunday morning. “He said: ‘Listen, would you come and meet me for talks tomorrow?’” 

“I said ‘Well I’ve shook hands with Blackburn’. He said ‘Don’t worry about that’ and I flew to Manchester on the Monday, met [assistant coach] Brian Kidd, Alex Ferguson, had a game of snooker with him, the usual small talk, they told me how great I was and I believed them.