FERGIE AND WENGER

How neat, how easy, for Arsène Wenger to say that his war of words with Sir Alex Ferguson is finished. It is not, and until both grow up in a hurry, it will never be.

Here we have the problem isolated in all its on-going horror. Neither of our two most successful managers appears capable of taking a critical look at themselves or their teams.

Ferguson cannot look at the Van Nistelrooy offence and not recoil in disgust. It is partisanship from the loony-bin, as is Wenger's failure to acknowledge that some of his own players have been guilty of similar outrages.

This general point has been made here several times in the last week or so but there are no apologies for returning to the issue. Ferguson won't let it go and Wenger is guilty of hypocrisy when he gets out the Pontius Pilate kit. They are doing more than calling into question the repute of their game. They are casting doubt about the balance of their minds.