ARSENAL THE BEST EVER
The row over the racehorse Rock Of Gibraltar may have been settled but that does not mean that the pressure has gone away. The difference now is that it comes from another source. This weekend it was coming from Fratton Park where Arsenal put on a performance that will demoralise their rivals for the Premiership title.
How have Manchester United emerged from the changes at the club in the last six months? For a start they are not the team playing the most exciting, attacking football in England - that title goes to Arsenal.
They are quite simply the most fluid, devastating team that the British Isles has seen and I have no hesitation in including my own Liverpool sides in that judgment.
The English game has seen some ruthless goalscoring teams in its time but none that have done it with the sheer pace and technical control that Arsenal have achieved.
Even I felt the pressure for United when I watched the demolition of Portsmouth on Saturday. As a footballer, there is nothing worse than watching your rivals turn in a performance as confident as that.
But if United are no longer capable of rolling over the top of teams in the way they once did, then they have also lost their other great strength. The financial supremacy they once enjoyed in the transfer market looks like it has gone for as long as Roman Abramovich stays at Chelsea. The race to sign Arjen Robben could only have one winner and it was never likely to be United.
Between them, Arsenal and Chelsea have removed the two most important pillars in the dominance that United have established over English football in the last decade.
Make no mistake, Ferguson has come out of the Rock Of Gibraltar saga to face the greatest challenge of his career. Last year he responded to that challenge by taking the title off Arsenal again, this season that task looks like a much taller order.
The appointment of Walter Smith as his assistant manager until the end of the season made sense to me. Smith was his No 2 when Scotland went to the 1986 World Cup - a trip that, in the end, didn't include me.
But I rate Walter's judgment very highly, he is an intelligent football man. A thinker and an analyst who will provide a good foil for Ferguson.
We all know how volatile the more senior of the two men can be with his players, but that is not Walter's way. He talks to you and wins your confidence with his incredible knowledge about opposition teams. Whether he can still save United's Premiership season, however, remains to be seen.
There is still the problem of where Ferguson stands with the club even though he has settled his legal dispute with their major shareholder. I think that when you challenge the integrity of powerful men they don't tend to forget and there cannot be any doubt that the United manager's authority throughout the club will struggle to regain the strength it once enjoyed.
If this was 1999 and Ferguson was winning the European Cup, the Premiership and the FA Cup - and that still is a possibility, albeit unlikely - then the question of his authority would not have been a problem.
But the terms under which he is judged have shifted - circumstances have changed. And events on the pitch have conspired to make him appear weaker.
I think that whatever happens next season, the next two signings he makes are crucial. They have to have the immediate impact that Louis Saha has managed.
And United also have to regain that factor that makes them appear invincible. Teams used to sit in the away dressing room at Old Trafford hoping they could restrict United to two goals, now they fancy their chances of getting something better.
Reaching the FA Cup semi-finals is a welcome achievement for Ferguson, who hasn't reached the final in the last four times his side has competed in the competition.
But you have to be honest, winning the FA Cup alone is not enough for United. Winning for them means reasserting themselves over Arsenal and Chelsea in the two big competitions.