Yorke made his first appearance of the campaign in last weekend's excellent home draw with Arsenal.

He has been restricted so far after suffering a fractured eye socket during pre-season, but proved he is still capable of playing his part with an assured performance against the energetic Gunners.

Keane said: "We knew Yorkie could play a role this season. He's been playing catch-up since missing two or three weeks with the quite nasty injury he got in pre-season.

"The lads have done reasonably well without him, so he has struggled to get back into the team.

"We know that Yorkie has the experience, and I think he's as good as anyone we've got at the club at that holding role in midfield.

"It was a bit of a risk throwing him back in against a big club like Arsenal, but we knew he would come through that.

"Hopefully he will come back from the Trinidad & Tobago games OK, and be challenging for a starting place in the team."

Yorke played half of T&T's 9-0 friendly demolition of the Dominican Republic on Thursday and is likely to be prominent in his country's World Cup qualifiers against Guatemala today and USA on Wednesday.

At 36, Keane remains sceptical about how much punishment his former Manchester United team-mate can take while still aiming to be available to face Fulham next weekend.

Keane said: "He's got three international games with the friendly and two qualifiers. Hopefully he'll use his common sense and the manager will as well, but it is out of our hands.

"You have to trust the player and the manager he's going to play under that they won't take any silly risks.

"He played for us last weekend; he'll probably play both qualifiers and that will be a big risk for us in terms of him being back and playing for us on the Saturday.

"It is about trying to get the balance right with Yorkie."

Yorke, who signed a new one-year deal in the summer, played 84 minutes against Arsenal before making way for goal hero Grant Leadbitter.

"Yorkie is in good shape for his age, and what's helped him, I think, is that he's never really had any bad injuries," added Keane. "I don't think he's had too many operations.

"He's got a good attitude in terms of looking after himself and working in the gym – he does plenty of work on that on a daily basis.

"You can't beat that match fitness, though, but he got through the Arsenal game OK.

"I think he might argue that he probably could play every week for us from Saturday to Saturday, but sometimes it doesn't work that way.

"We have one or two busy months coming up with still being in the Carling Cup and whatever.

"It will be a challenge for him in terms of playing two or three games a week. We'll wait and see what happens with that."