Keane carried United in Turin and with his absence on the Nou Camp field there was a dawning sense of despair But

Keane carried United in Turin and with his absence on the Nou Camp field there was a dawning sense of despair But it was shaken loose and driven away. Why? Because, it is reasonable to believe, of something that Ferguson has, uniquely, brought to his team and his football life.It is the quality of moral courage, which may sound a little airy until you begin to compare, for example, the records of United and the team most likely to usurp their domestic empire this season, Arsenal. If Ars? Wenger’s men take the double, as logic says they will, no one can deny the quality of their football over the season. But what about the lack of a hard edge in the years since 1998, when they last won the double? What about the surrenders in Europe? And if, now, they are about to spit away some of the dust they have inhaled at the heels of Fergie’s army, what is United’s current business? It is, once again, to fight for the highest ground in European football.As they do so, no one can be in any doubt about their greatest asset. It is a long, hard education in the most vital difference between winners and losers, which has never been about one man’s tactical innovation. It concerns having good players in their natural positions who have been bred to believe as much in themselves as the familiar way in which they play.

That has been Ferguson’s great gift to United and it remains as viable as ever tonight. It would help, though, if Giggs just happens to skin Bayer along the left.Time to give fans freedomThe news of impending traffic chaos in Cardiff for Saturday’s Cup Final is a bleak reminder of the plight of the British sports fan.So often he is obliged to contemplate not a simple pleasure but a draining ordeal. The point was underlined for anyone who happened to attend Sunday’s Spanish Grand Prix on the outskirts of Barcelona.A riveting specatacle it may not have been but nor was it Silvestone every year – an invitation to mass nervous breakdown. A new road system linking the Circuit de Catalunya to the motorways meant it was possible to park up in the centre of Barcelona, despite the paseo of Sunday night revellers, precisely an hour after leaving the track.

The experience was positively heady for someone who once listened to an entire BBC radio play while moving six car lengths across the Silverstone in-field.The radio drama made the whole experience particularly excruciating in that its theme was prison life. When, you wonder as fiercely now as you did then, is the British fan of almost any major sport going to be set free?Reciprocal loyalty: what a quaint ideaA few weeks ago a television reporter was dressed down by Patrick Vieira for having the temerity to ask about the player’s long-term future at Highbury.Vieira said that despite the comments of his agent and his own sudden social visit to Madrid, speculation that he might want to leave in the summer, perhaps, who knew, for Real, was entirely the creation of the media. Now the Arsenal vice-chairman, David Dein, says: “If a player wants to be difficult invariably he gets his move – but we don’t want it to happen here. There will be a conversation with Ars? [Wenger, the Arsenal manager] and Patrick – and I’m confident the player will stay with us, but you cannot say 100 per cent.”No, of course you cannot. You just dribble on with the double-speak, hoping that the people who pay for it all, the fans who go to the grounds and stump up their Sky subscriptions, continue to support a system in which the concept of reciprocal loyalty becomes ever more quaint. What Dein does not entertain now, any more than he did when Nicolas Anelka headed for Madrid, is the sensational idea of reading back to the player the terms of his contract, and then letting him stew in them. In the Anelka case that would have cost Arsenal the vast profit of more than £20m.That, plainly, would be unthinkable in today’s football.

But what about tomorrow’s? Today’s moral act could be tomorrow’s stab at survival, of the integrity of a contract and the dignity of a football club whose marble halls once spoke of real values. Meanwhile, it would be good if someone like Patrick Vieira did not take us all for complete fools.* In this column of 26 March, when I referred to the approach of the Leeds United chairman, Peter Ridsdale, to the Woodgate and Bowyer affair, I did not mean to suggest that Mr Ridsdale had acted dishonestly and I am happy to make this clear.. Craig Brown was yesterday confirmed as Preston North End’s new manager, and could now approach his old Scotland right-hand man Archie Knox to join him. He was previously Alex Ferguson’s assistant at Manchester United.Brown, who resigned from the Scotland job in October last year following their failure to qualify for the 2002 World Cup finals, admitted he was relishing his return to club football.