Roy Keane could have joined Juventus and Bayern Munich while at Manchester United but wishes he tried Real Madrid after, will Paul Pogba choose differently?

With the transfer window in full swing the uncertainty surrounding Paul Pogba’s future has come back to the surface.

It’s all going so well for the Red Devils on the pitch as he find themselves well in contention to win the Premier League but the long-running unease generated by the Pogba saga is always lingering.

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The midfielder has flirted with the idea of leaving Manchester United on multiple occasions and he continues to be linked with Juventus and Real Madrid, despite his recent upturn in form.

Losing a player of Pogba’s quality would be a blow for the club, who look to be on some kind of path towards getting the good old days back. A big ingredient towards that success in the 1990s and 2000s was keeping their most important players.

We’ve heard how some of these players, including Ryan Giggs, had opportunities to go elsewhere but decided to stay at Old Trafford.

If Pogba is figuring out what his next move will be, perhaps he should consult Roy Keane, who claims to have turned down Juventus and Bayern Munich while playing for United.

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When those opportunities arose isn’t clear as Keane mentioned it in passing in his autobiography ‘The Second Half’ when recounting an argument he had with former United assistant Carlos Queiroz about loyalty.

Keane wrote: “I said ‘Don’t you talk to me about loyalty. Don’t you f****** talk to me about loyalty, Carlos. You left this club after twelve months a few years ago for the Real Madrid job.”

“Don’t you dare question my loyalty. I had opportunities to go to Juventus and Bayern Munich. So don’t you question me about loyalty.”

But after establishing Keane was indeed loyal, he revealed that he could’ve gone to the Bernabeu after it was agreed he’d leave Man United in 2005.

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The Spanish giants offered him a one-and-a-half year deal but the move fell through due to Keane’s concerns at how slow the deal was happening. He then signed for Celtic.

But he later admitted he may have been against Real Madrid due to fear of failure.

He added: “I should have appreciated Real’s offer more. It was the most attractive challenge in front of me, but I didn’t accept it.

“With hindsight I should have said to myself, ‘Go. Go to Spain, live there for a year-and-a-half, learn a different language, learn the culture. You might end up loving it. You might even stay there.’

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“But instead – as usual – I was looking at what might go wrong.

“I didn’t want to move to Spain. As much as anything else, it was fear that decided me – fear of the unknown. And I threw excuses in front of me – family, language, the kids’ education.

“I could imagine myself going to Madrid, and into the dressing room. I’d be starting all over again, and I was in no mood to be doing that. I’d had a tough career. Physically, I was struggling.

“‘Hindsight’ is a f***** of a word.”