2021 saved? Roy Keane appears to have taken a selfie and joined Instagram

Looks like the budding bromance with Micah Richards has already had a dramatic impact

Roy Keane's first Instagram post at officialkeane16

Looks like the budding bromance with Micah Richards has had a dramatic impact — Roy Keane appears to have joined Instagram.

And the new verified account — officialkeane16 — already has its first selfie, featuring Roy with his dog, captioned 'A man's best friend'.

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A post shared by Irish Examiner (@irish_examiner)

As further evidence of its authenticity, the account features a profile picture of Keane as a young boy. The account already has over 160,000 followers.

Perhaps Roy is on board to see what all the fuss is about, after being continually pestered by his Sky Sports punditry colleague showing him viral videos.

The social networks haven't had a great press within football lately, the floods of toxic abuse drawing condemnation from around the game. 

Just today, Instagram owners Facebook confirmed they won't be deleting the account of the fan who racially abused Swansea player Yan Dhanda.

Keane has never numbered himself among social's biggest fans either, frequently making scathing remarks about players spending time on Twitter.

Nor has he been an advocate of selfies — indeed he once considered them the chief obstacle to Arsenal ever winning the title again.

"They've lots of good players. But it's about having a good team, characters who roll their sleeves up, not just those trying to get their pictures every day of the week, selfies. Selfies will hold them back."

Most likely Roy is on board the social network for some charitable purpose. But if anyone can clean up these cesspools from the inside, surely it's him. Take cover trolls and abusers.