In a world of waffle, soft touch platitudes and lazy cliche, Roy Keane’s punditry still cuts through like a scythe.

The former Manchester United captain delivers his verdicts in the television studio in the same no-nonsense manner he delivered his tackles on the pitch.

Rarely does Keane waste a word, pull a punch or fail to set the agenda, whether it’s comparing Erling Haaland’s all-round game to a League Two player or savaging the ‘small club’ mentality at United.

Sometimes the Irishman does come across a little too grumpy, sometimes he’ll make a comment for the sake of being controversial like a ‘Shock Jock’, but people value what he has to say.

It’s ironic that Keane, a private character who you suspect wouldn’t engage with social media if he didn’t have to, makes the most waves there with his opinions.

Just last week, City boss Pep Guardiola was forced to spend several minutes in his press conference mounting a defence of Haaland’s game because Keane’s remarks had gone viral.

‘I am not agreeing with him. It’s like if I said: “He’s a manager from the second or third league – I don’t think so.” He’s the best striker in the world,’ said a rattled Guardiola.

Plenty would argue the Haaland criticism was nonsense but it proved that to Keane there are no sacred cows in football, however good they are. Everybody has things they can improve on.

The fact Guardiola felt the need to bite back just proved Keane has the kind of cut-through politicians can only dream of.

Fans dwell on his every utterance, compilations are made of his best bits at the end of each season and there are Instagram accounts dedicated to Keane memes.

Every so often, Keane, 52, drops a hint he might wish to return to management. It’s been over 13 years now since Ipswich Town sacked him.

Of course he has since worked as an assistant for the Republic of Ireland, Aston Villa and Nottingham Forest but, as time passes, it’s increasingly clear the TV studio is Keane’s natural home.

Sky’s Premier League coverage and ITV’s big tournament line-up would be diminished without him.

Nobody has been more acerbic on the subject of Manchester United’s decline since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013.

Keane’s declaration on Sunday afternoon that Erik ten Hag’s team are ‘playing like a small club’ as they clung on for dear life before somehow escaping with a 2-2 draw against Liverpool chimed with many United fans.

The mighty have definitely fallen over the past decade and most certainly since Keane’s day when they’d be favourites in clashes with Liverpool, or anyone else for that matter.

If you were to clip together a montage of United’s low moments in that time, the comments of Keane and Gary Neville would provide the perfect soundtrack.

There was Keane’s memorable blast at David de Gea in June 2020 – ‘I am sick to death of this goalkeeper. I would be fighting him at half-time, I would be swinging punches at that guy… I wouldn’t even let them on the bus, get a taxi back to Manchester.’

His lambasting of the United midfield under Ole Gunnar Solskjaer – ‘If you think Fred and [Scott] McTominay and [Nemanja] Matic will get Man United back to the heights of winning league titles, then you’re living in cuckoo land.’

After United were outclassed by City in November 2021 – ‘You’re looking over your shoulder on the bus and you see [Luke] Shaw, [Harry] Maguire, Fred… my job depends on these guys, then you’re in trouble.’

Earlier this season, on Bruno Fernandes and his worthiness to wear the United armband: ‘In terms of captain material, he is the opposite to what I would want… his whinging, his moaning and throwing his arms up in the air constantly.’

Those soundbites are merely to scratch the surface of the Keane back catalogue as United lurch from crisis to crisis.

Some would accuse Keane of an old fogeyish ‘in my day’ attitude and argue that football’s cyclical nature means United were never going to prosper forever.

But whenever Keane appears on Sky, the fact his on-screen caption says ‘seven-time Premier League winner’ nicely sums up why he is justified in his bitter criticism and the occasional red mist rant.

None of United’s current players can aspire to such glories nor the consistent high standards Keane himself set as club captain.

Deep down, Keane wants United to be as successful as they were back then and it genuinely pains him to see them hanging on in desperation against Liverpool, City and quite a few other opponents.

Neville is better for the kind of Ferguson-era anecdote fans still clamour for but when Keane draws back the curtain it is often entertaining.

This one, after that 2-0 City loss in 2021, could well become Keane’s epitaph: ‘When I’m not at the races in a game and I go ‘you know what, what I might do, I might smash into somebody… just to make me feel better.”

Or this comment from 2019: ‘You’re playing for Man United to win. God help me if in our dressing room someone mentioned can we finish fourth as a great achievement. You’d have been lynched.’

Another rich seam is Keane’s bewilderment at the current crop of ‘Gen Z’ footballers and behaviour which would never have been tolerated in the dressing rooms he once patrolled.

It may well explain his reluctance to return to management and it’s here that Keane’s distance from his own playing days allows him licence to call it out.

You suspect older generations of football fans think Keane is spot on in this department.

He was left enraged in 2019 by Brazilian United and Liverpool players – Fred, Andreas Pereira, Fabinho and Roberto Firmino – backslapping and hugging as they prepared to take the field.

His infamous tunnel rage at Arsenal nemesis Patrick Vieira in 2005 this was not.

‘I’m disgusted with the players. You’re going to war, they’re hugging and kissing. Don’t even look at the opposition, you’re going into battle against them,’ Keane fumed.

‘The game hasn’t changed that much, the players have changed. Chat to them after the game, or don’t even chat to them after the game.’

Keane ripped into Jesse Lingard for deciding to launch his new fashion label a few days before a crunch Liverpool vs United game – with Jose Mourinho’s job on the line – in 2019.

‘If there was a good, strong dressing room that would not be tolerated.’

But it quickly morphed into a blast at the modern player. ‘I think football should be your No 1 priority, it should be. Focus on the game, don’t hide behind your cars, or your tattoos or your girlfriends or your agent, play the game.’

You could almost detect the ‘hear, hear’ from living rooms up and down the land.

Footballers apologising after poor displays has become another Keane bugbear with Maguire one of those on the receiving end in the past.

So another Super Sunday, another headline-grabbing Keane moment as he slammed Ten Hag for being ‘really upbeat’ when ‘the way Man United are playing is like a mid-table team, a small club.’

He added: ‘I don’t get his positivity, obviously he’s had a couple of glasses of wine after the game… Maybe that’s just me being a bit old and grumpy.’

Maybe, Roy, but we all love the way you tell it how it is.