Will Keane's Journey: From Injury Setbacks to PFA Camp

There is a photograph from May 2012 that captures a different future.

England’s Under-19s line up for a European Championship qualifier against Switzerland. Two young centre-forwards stand side by side: Will Keane and Harry Kane. Back then, if you were picking which one would be preparing for a World Cup semi-final a decade on, most would have pointed to the Manchester United prodigy, not the gangly Tottenham loanee.

“I'd never had any setbacks at that point,” Will Keane recalls. “When you're young, you're fearless. The whole trajectory of my career was up. I made my senior debut for Manchester United. We won the Youth Cup. I was doing well for England. Everything was taking off.”

Then everything stopped.

Near the end of that game against Switzerland, Keane’s knee went. A major ligament injury. Sixteen months out. Sixteen months at the precise moment when United’s academy stars either sink into the shadows or step into Old Trafford’s light.

While Keane learned to walk, run and trust his body again, Kane went on loan to Norwich and Leicester, then forced his way into Tottenham’s first team. One career accelerated. The other was dragged into a holding pattern it has never fully escaped.

“It’s timing,” Keane says. “Some lads go their whole career and have a few niggles, but nothing derails them too much.

“That first injury was at a crucial time. I had my foot in the door. The feeling was I would probably have been around the first team.

“If the injury had happened a couple of years later, I might have been an established squad player. When I had it, I missed 16 months at a crucial part of the transition from reserves to seniors.”

From World Cup dreams to the PFA camp

As Kane readies himself to face Argentina on the biggest stage, Keane is in very different surroundings: Champneys Springs in Leicestershire, one of 45 out-of-contract professionals clinging to the game they love at the PFA’s 12-week pre-season camp.

At 33, with eight clubs behind him, 335 senior appearances and 85 goals, he is not done yet. Not with football. Not with international football either, having switched allegiance from England youth levels to the Republic of Ireland, where he has five senior caps.

“A couple of lads I know did the camp last season and spoke really highly,” he says. “I almost feel like I'm part of a squad, and we're away for pre-season. There are so many staff; medical, coaching, administrative, media.

“It's quite competitive and there are seven or eight games, so clubs can see you're playing. There's an app clubs can sign up to. It's like a PFA transfer list – all our training data goes on it. Clubs can contact us directly, so hopefully if you go somewhere, you can go straight in.”

He has been here before, on the outside looking in. In 2020, as Covid ripped through football’s finances, Ipswich declined to trigger a one-year option on his deal. Eventually, Wigan offered a route back.

That second spell at the DW Stadium did more than revive his career. It changed how he thought about it.

The injuries that rewrote a career

The first ACL tear was brutal. The second was crushing.

Keane had already absorbed enough disappointment to break most players. The first long lay-off at United. The loans that didn’t quite click. Then, in February 2016, another devastating blow.

He “ripped his groin” in an FA Cup tie at Shrewsbury. The timing, again, was cruel. Three days later, United travelled to face Midtjylland in the Europa League. Anthony Martial was injured in the warm-up. A young striker got the call.

It was Marcus Rashford, not Will Keane.

Rashford scored twice that night, then twice more against Arsenal in the Premier League. A star was born. A door slammed shut.

“I went to America for an operation, landed in Philadelphia, turned my phone on and saw he scored two more,” Keane remembers.

He was 23. United were the club he and his family supported, the place where he had been earmarked as a future first-teamer. In that moment, he knew. The dream was gone.

He did what professionals do. He moved on. Hull City, newly promoted to the Premier League, looked like a fresh start.

In his sixth game, his knee went again. Another ACL. Another 14 months gone.

“It was crushing,” he says. “I missed the whole season, and we got relegated. A lot of the young lads still got good moves; Harry Maguire went to Leicester, Andy Robertson went to Liverpool, Sam Clucas to Swansea.”

Keane’s path went the other way. He was not on the escalator to the top any more. He was fighting to stay on the ride at all.

Rebuilding the mind

The physical rehab became almost routine. The mental scars did not heal as easily.

“I'd used sports psychologists before and always tried to be positive and optimistic,” Keane explains. But it was only at Wigan that he tackled the real damage, with someone who had never worked in football.

“He’s a bit more of a spiritual psychologist. We focus on positive intentions, manifesting, visualisation.

“I’d tried everything in the box, and kept breaking down, so I wanted to do something a bit different.

“I wish I'd had that when I was younger, especially with the setbacks I had early on. It might have got me back into the right frame of mind.

“For any player if you've not got belief in yourself, and you're lacking confidence, you're not going to perform the way you can.”

He looks back at that period after his first injury at United, the failed Championship loans, the creeping doubt.

“I was around the first team at United, then I got the injury, had a few loans in the Championship where I didn't do very well and I started to doubt myself. Wigan catapulted me.

“Before that I should have backed myself. I played with a lot of those lads all the way through, and that's where I was potentially heading.

“If I'd focused on the mental part earlier, it might have been a different outcome.

“Even at times when I picked up injuries, maybe I had a bit of self-doubt which led to something going wrong. If I was in the right frame of mind, maybe one of those bad injuries wouldn't even have happened.”

It is a stark admission from a player who once seemed to glide through every age group without resistance. The talent never really left. The certainty did.

Kane’s certainty, Keane’s perspective

His old strike partner offers the perfect contrast.

“His old strike partner Kane, it seems, has no self-doubt,” Keane says with a mixture of admiration and acceptance.

“I remember when we were young, people said he wasn't mobile but technically, the time he put into his finishing and his obsessiveness to be the best in terms of shooting, you see it don't you?

“He’s so sure of himself, because he's put the work in. He knows he's a complete striker.

“He’s obviously got that belief in himself. He might miss one, but he's not going shy away from it. If he didn't have certainty in his mind, he wouldn't be as prolific.

“He’s not arrogant, he’s just got the confidence that sets top players apart.”

One became England captain and a global star. The other is at a training camp, selling his data to potential employers via an app. They were once separated by very little. Now, by almost everything.

Keane does not sound bitter. Just honest about how thin the margins are, and how unforgiving the sport can be.

Still in the game, still in demand

After finishing last season on loan at Reading, Keane left Preston when his contract expired. He is back in the shop window, but not in a panic.

“There's been a few chats,” he says. “I'm sure they're aware of me. They might be looking for A, B and C targets, but when the season does start, if a club doesn't have a great start, there's a bit of panic and maybe things open up.”

He has lived that side of the market too long to be naïve. A striker with his experience and record will get a call. It just might not come until someone else misfires.

Internationally, his loyalties are split in the best possible way.

“It's a hard one because I played for England up until Under-21s, and then seniors for the Republic of Ireland, so I've got a foot in both camps.

“I am proud to represent Ireland. My dad was born there and moved to England. But I've also been born and raised in England, and my family's English.”

So he watches Kane with pride and a hint of what-might-have-been, while still chasing his own next chapter. The sliding doors moment came years ago. The question now is simpler, and in some ways just as brutal.

Who opens the next door for Will Keane?