Keane: If I could play just one more game, it would be against Arsenal

The 36-year-old takes his side to the Emirates Stadium on Sunday to lock horns for the first time as a manager with Arsene Wenger, the man who for so long provided the biggest challenge to his hopes and dreams at Manchester United.

Keane collected seven Premier League winners' medals during his twelve and a half years at Old Trafford, but was denied three more by the Frenchman and his Gunners side.

Nowhere was the intensity of the battles between the two clubs more concentrated than in Keane's confrontation with Frenchman Patrick Vieira.

The pair enjoyed a simmering rivalry which helped to fuel the passion of their respective sides, and the Irishman admits he loved every minute of it.

He said: "It was brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

"Usually my preparation for a game on a Saturday if we were playing Arsenal would start on the previous Sunday.

"Your body just knew you were going to play Arsenal, just psychologically, your body would get ready for it.

"It was the same for all the players, and I am sure it was the same for the Arsenal players.

"Those games were brilliant, absolutely fantastic, the best. United against Arsenal - if you could go back for one game, then that would be the game.

"They were brilliant, brilliant rivalry, the rivalry between the fans, the players, the managers.

"Both teams were usually fighting it out for the title - it was fantastic. You would give anything to play in one of those games again.

"But stuff like that has gone - those rivalries have gone. They still want to beat each other, but there is not that real intensity that there was then."

Wenger voiced his fears earlier this year that football was in danger of selling its soul as millions continued to pour into the game with foreign owners buying their way into the Barclays Premier League.

It is a concern shared by Keane, who admits the game is not the one in which he rose to prominence.

He said: "The game is changing. It is probably a lot colder.

"Football is not the game I knew maybe 10 years ago, and that goes for every club.

"It is changing and it is sad to see. But maybe it is up to the managers to try to do something about that and keep their identities, keep it in the community and do everything you can.

"But yes, I would agree with that, football has probably lost its soul, certainly for the worse."

Asked how that process might be reversed, Keane replied: "It's a good question. I'll get back to you on that."

In the meantime, he will concentrate simply on the task of trying to beat seemingly impossible odds by returning from north London with a positive result, something no other side has managed so far this season.

But as he made his final preparations, he made no secret of his admiration for Wenger.

He said: "I have always had massive respect for him as a manager.

"If you are a punter and you want to go to watch a team, I would suggest Arsenal and United are the two teams you would pay to go to watch."