Fergie's final chapter will be a winner

Sir Alex Ferguson does not talk to reporters he does not like and, because he is the manager of the biggest football club in the world, the hacks are frightened of upsetting him.

So there was a nervousness when the time came to question him about Roy Keane's tackle on Alf-Inge Haaland. One tentative inquiry about whether Keane was "back in his bad old ways" brought a brusque response from Fergie. "That's a bloody stupid question. Where have you been, in the land of nod? He's only had one yellow card all season."

Nobody dared point out that Keane has now had five yellows and two reds, and certainly nobody was brave enough to suggest that Fergie should condemn a tackle which left Haaland with stud marks above his right knee.

Fergie did not talk to the Match of the Day programme for months because of something written in the MOTD magazine, but then, judging from the News of the World, he does not say much to the media even when he is being paid.

Fergie writes for the News of the World, and in last Sunday's piece he said he wanted to buy three new players but did not give any names. Elsewhere in the paper, it was reported that United chief executive Peter Kenyon had confirmed that the club were "close to signing" Ruud van Nistelrooy. In fact, he signed for United on Saturday, before Fergie's column was published. Unfortunately for the rest of us, however, the van Nistelrooy signing shows that Fergie is still aggravatingly greedy for glory.

Some buffoons speculated in print and on phone-ins after United's European Champions League defeat that Fergie had lost the plot.