IF Roy Keane does indeed get his wish and is appointed as manager of Celtic, there is perhaps only one outcome of which we could all be certain; it wouldn’t be dull.

Whether it would lead to any tangible success for Celtic though, is an entirely different matter.

That Keane was a winner as a player goes without saying. He won 17 major trophies in a magnificent career at Manchester United (plus two in his short spell at Celtic), and captained the Old Trafford side with great distinction under Sir Alex Ferguson.

There were of course bust-ups along the way, with his notoriously volatile temper surfacing from time to time, most infamously when he deliberately injured Leeds united player Alf-Inge Håland

“I'd waited long enough,” Keane said in his autobiography. “I f*****g hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that you c***. And don't ever stand over me sneering about fake injuries.”

Charming. The admission brought him a £150,000 fine for bringing the game into disrepute, and may even cost United dearly all these years later in their pursuit of Håland’s son, the deadly Borussia Dortmund marksman Erling.

So, it would be fair to say that for all Keane has plenty of fire in the belly, he is a little lacking in diplomacy. That old school attitude may have served him well as a captain in the heart of the midfield for one of Europe’s most successful clubs, but it failed to translate into an effective management style when he stepped into the dugout. Which perhaps explains why Keane hasn’t set foot inside one in a decade.

It all started so well for Keane in management though, with his arrival at Sunderland taking them from the relegation places in the Championship to the title, and automatic promotion to the Premier League. This was achieved with no softening of his disciplinarian tendencies, leaving three players behind when they were late for the bus to a match at Barnsley.

The next season, he kept Sunderland up, but it was in his third season that his hardline attitude started to rub his players up the wrong way, and the fortunes of the Black Cats started to decline.

In November of that season, and with his side 18th in the English Premier League, his players were reported to have held a celebration as he handed in his resignation.

Perhaps most worryingly from a Celtic perspective as they look to modernise their football operations, is that Keane himself cited tensions between himself and Sunderland chairman Niall Quinn as a contributory factor in his decision to step down. How Keane may work with a director of football should Celtic choose to appoint one, must be a concern. The clash between the appointment of Keane and modernisation is a point worth revisiting.

His next step in management came when he was appointed manager of Ipswich, where he presided over a 14-match winless run at the start of his first full season in charge, knocked around the bottom half of the Championship for the most part, before being dismissed with a few months of his two-year contract still to run. This was in January 2011, and he has not been a manager since.

Were it not for his stellar career as a genuinely world-class midfielder, and for his connections to Celtic as a lifelong fan, player, and close friend of former manager Martin O’Neill, then such a managerial CV would be nowhere near good enough to merit more than a passing mention in the conversation around the next Celtic manager.

And despite those connections to Celtic and his love for the club, as well as the ‘box-office’ profile he still enjoys thanks to his incendiary style of punditry on Sky, it would be a safe bet to assume the response from the Celtic support if he was appointed would be lukewarm at best.

Keane almost became Celtic manager back in 2014 before the appointment of Ronny Deila, but later said that he turned the position down as principal shareholder Dermot Desmond hadn’t made him feel that the club wanted him enough. It was, according to Keane, the ‘right job at the wrong time’. Coming on the back of Neil Lennon’s departure though, and with a great many supporters yearning for a coach in the more progressive Brendan Rodgers mould, there is little to suggest that the timing is better now.

Which brings us back to the point about modernisation. During Lennon’s second spell in charge of Celtic, he admitted he found it difficult to straddle the two stools, trying to maintain the fire and fury that brought him so much success as a player, and trying to discover how to press the buttons of the modern player.

“Maybe I’ve gone too far in terms of [changing my style], I don’t know,” Lennon said after the 4-1 home defeat to Sparta Prague earlier this season.

“I’ve got to cut the malaise. It’s my job to nip it in the bud. And maybe become that little bit tougher on them now. To get some response for them. A proper response.

“Maybe getting a little bit harder of them might be the way forward. A little bit. But then you can get criticised for that.”

There may be many Celtic supporters out there who feel that the current crop of players could do with a kick up the backside and a refresher course in their responsibilities to the jersey, but what the long-term benefit would be of bringing in someone to get the teacups flying again is highly debatable.

Should Keane remain an option for the position may ultimately say a lot about whether the long-term growth of the club or a short-term response to blowing 10 in-a-row is uppermost in the minds of the Celtic board.