Scottish football may be perceived as somehow lesser or as a lower standard of football by many supporters from south of the border, but the history of Scotland’s top flight is littered with big names who simply couldn’t hack it up here.

One of the most famous ‘flops’ in the history of the Scottish Premiership (then the SPL) was Manchester United legend Roy Keane who memorably signed for Celtic in 2005. The Irishman, who won seven Premier League titles and four FA Cups as well as the UEFA Champions League with the Red Devils, is best remembered for his Hoops’ debut where they suffered one of the greatest shocks in Scottish Cup history with a 2-1 defeat to Clyde.

Having signed in December 2005, he left Celtic Park and announced his retirement from football in 2006 after just a handful of appearances for the Glasgow club. Now, in a recent interview, the former Sunderland and Ipswich Town manager says he should have hung up his boots before he signed on at Parkhead.

He was speaking to Sky Bet’s ‘Stick to Football’ and said: “I should have retired when I left Manchester United, the day I left the club. I even lost a bit of the love for the game after that, I left United and went up to Celtic, my hip was at me, painkillers for training, tore my hamstring two or three times, commuting, thinking I’m 34 now.

“I still had a year left on my contract [at Celtic] and I went to see the hip specialist and they said that the longer I play the worse damage. The beauty is that when I rang Gordon Strachan, I told him that I’m finished, I was losing sleep before I rang him but as soon as I put the phone down I had closure on my career, no hesitation, it wasn’t a relief but something was lifted off me.”