Fergie and Roy’s class struggle

For the Dunph’s “a good player, not a great player”, now read Fergie’s “a great player but not world class”.

Alex Ferguson’s new book — only his 104th since retirement — has this week “reignited” his feud with Roy Keane, so we’re told, on the back of the most headline-grabbing extract revealing that his former captain and on-field leader did not make the shortlist of United players the manager deemed “world class” during his 26 years at Old Trafford.

Whether this really is fresh fuel to the feud will, of course, depend in large part on if and how and when Roy Keane chooses to respond, and since blowing his own trumpet has never been a hallmark of the Corkman — you get the sense that he’s always more comfortable detuning others’— it will be interesting to see how, if so inclined, he might go about defending himself against the accusation that he was somehow a lesser light in United red than Fergie’s Fab Four of Cristiano Ronaldo, Paul Scholes, Ryan Giggs and Eric Cantona.