Friday deadline for United skipper

ROY KEANE has until Friday to decide how to respond to his two Football Association disciplinary charges.

The Man United skipper faces a charge of deliberately setting out to injure Manchester City’s Alfie Haaland at Old Trafford last year and of profiting from revelations made in his autobiography. The former Republic of Ireland midfielder revealed in his book how he deliberately attempted to injure his City rival after an incident while Haaland was at Leeds when Keane suffered a serious knee injury.

Keane said: “I’d waited almost 180 minutes for Alfie. I’d waited long enough. I hit him hard. The ball was there (I think). Take that.”

But the FA responded by charging Keane, who now has until 5pm on Friday to respond after being given a 48-hour extension to the deadline.

An FA statement confirmed: “Further to requests from Roy Keane, the FA can confirm they have agreed a 48-hour extension to the deadline in which the player has to respond to the two FA charges he faces.

“Manchester United have been made aware of this information. It is not unusual in disciplinary cases for extensions to be granted for players to respond.”

It has been suggested Keane may appeal on freedom of speech grounds, although the Irishman’s camp have remained silent on that issue.

Keane is facing at least another month on the sidelines after undergoing a knee operation which could coincide with any ban he might face.

Apart from a big fine, he also faces the prospect of an eight-match ban.

Haaland has not played a full game since the incident and is still considering taking legal action against Keane, as are Northern Irish outfit Linfield who were outraged by comments made against them in the autobiography.

Professional Footballers’ Association chief executive Gordon Taylor has already admitted Keane has left himself open to disciplinary action over his comments.

Keane did little to quell the controversy in a series of interviews to coincide with the release of the book, insisting it was “an honest account” he had read and was happy with.

However, he subsequently back-tracked slightly, claiming ghost-writer Eamonn Dunphy had incorrectly paraphrased his comments.