Fergie frenzy hides the faults

SIGH. I deliberately didn’t mention the Fergie/Wiley affair last week in the — eventually forlorn — hope that the moronic episode would blow over before the internationals kicked off.

“Surely,” I reckoned, “not even the UK’s absurdist footballing press pack can get more than three days’ copy out of this triviality?”

Well, as someone almost once said, no-one ever went broke underestimating the ridiculousness of your average British pundit. As I write on a Monday evening, the London papers are still devoting virtually full pages to it, most on the wholly erroneous basis that Ferge saying ‘sorry’ is somehow unprecedented. Utter tosh, of course. Ferguson has often conceded he was wrong — it’s just that he normally waits until his next book to do so, sometimes two or three years after the event.

Anyhow: I don’t propose to waste any more of your precious time on the nuts ‘n’ bolts of the controversy. Except, perhaps, to point out how amusing it was to see so many hacks mention en passant that Fergie was clearly engaged in a diversionary operation ! and yet then proceeded to allow themselves to be diverted for another 900 words.

Thus it was that the glaring faults illuminated by Sunderland ten days ago have been barely analysed since, waylaid for acres of useless Prozone pseudo-stats about Wiley.

Speaking of glaring faults, howsabout Rio Ferdinand’s for starters? This, at least, is one properly footballing ‘Hot Topic’ the Partridgean hacks have managed to find room for, though I note it took him cocking up in an England shirt for them to do so.

Clearly they’ve not been keeping tally of his serial offences in a Red shirt over his past dozen games, such as against Liverpool, in Rome, at Spurs and now versus Sunderland. Which is a pity, since I’m sure Prozone has just as much evidence thereof as it does of Wiley’s waistline. Has Rio ‘turned’, as they say — that is, suddenly hit the age when The Decline begins? Much as I dislike him, I doubt it — and I’m beginning to feel like sticking up for him for only the second time in his career, as the hacks circle like vultures. (The first time was over his ban, which was terribly mishandled and smacked of unfair example-setting).

As usual with Rio, one suspects a certain amount of egotistical complacency may have played a part. After his extremely shaky display at Spurs, and his grim role in the goal conceded, I was stunned to see him boast a week later about how well he thought he had played.

Clearly no-one had told him any differently. But in fairness to the lad, he has in the past shown that when someone in authority grabs him by the lapels and warns him “look, pal, I’m telling you that you have a problem: get it sorted,” he has usually knuckled down and done so.

Thus it was that after the furore over his refusal to sign a new deal a few years ago — and his unfortunate restaurant date with Kenyon — he initially clearly failed to see he had any PR issues to address.

Someone, though, obviously had a word: and he was fence-mending for months afterwards, to good effect.

Virtually fully redeemed, his role in the triumphs of 2008 gained even the grudging gratitude of the Rio-phobes.

But let us have one thing straight: this is not about him having post-injury glitches. It’s not about his fitness, but his concentration. It was ever thus. And the problems were evident ‘before’ his layoff. The trundling, woeful, and much-hated Bolton offer him the perfect chance to begin a new redemption on Saturday. I wish him well.