I wish I did buy the argument, expressed by some disillusioned Manchester United fans, that Rio Ferdinand’s horrible season stems from a lack of focus.

It would make life a lot simpler if we could attribute his mistakes to being too tied up with off-field activities; if we could brush off his helplessness when confronted by an 80 per cent Fernando Torres on Sunday as fatigue from parading up and down a Leicester Square red carpet. Because then we could do something about it.

If it was that easy, Sir Alex Ferguson could ban his defender from any more premieres like last Thursday night’s screening in Soho, Central London, of Dead Man Running, an event Ferdinand attended only hours after clambering off a long flight back from Moscow.

The Manchester United manager could tell Ferdinand that his days of being an “executive producer” are over; no more funding films, negotiating with 50 Cent, choosing the soundtrack or helping with the editing until he has hung up his boots. Then Ferguson could order Ferdinand to give up #5, his online magazine. This month: win £500 in a skills competition to be judged by Rio himself.

And while the United manager could hardly object to the admirable motives behind Ferdinand’s Live The Dream Foundation that helps disadvantaged youngsters, he could instruct him to rearrange the lavish launch in December — special guest: Robbie Williams — to a time when he is not playing like a drain.

While he is clearing Ferdinand’s schedule, Ferguson could also cancel next month’s filming of a special edition of Hell’s Kitchen in which the defender is due to star alongside Marco Pierre White.

And he can tell him to think twice about “Rosso”, the 150-seat Italian restaurant in Manchester, which has Ferdinand as one of the partners.

With this much extracurricular work — be thankful that he turned down offers to launch fragrancy and fashion ranges — it is no surprise that some United and England fans perceive a player who already has one eye on the future when he should have it on the ball that is bouncing past him.

But if any of these interests were distracting him from being a centre half, is there anyone more likely than Ferguson to put an end to the showbiz lifestyle? The old tyrant cannot, surely, be mellowing to the point of allowing one of his leading players to put producing gangster movies above winning at Anfield.

Yet if the off-the-field business, on top of being a father of two young children, is not diverting his attention, that leaves us with Ferdinand’s explanation that he simply needs time to establish his old form after a run of thigh, back and groin injuries.

Ferdinand insists that he is still shaking off rustiness and has been doing so throughout a campaign that began with the sloppiness in England’s friendly away to Holland in August, continued through his terrible mistake against Manchester City in September, rumbled on through the bouncing ball debacle of Ukraine in October and then on to Anfield on Sunday. That is an awful lot of rust.

A total of 11 games for club and country this season is certainly far fewer than Ferdinand would like but what is fast becoming a deep concern is not the mistakes, which the defender has been prone to throughout a long, distinguished career, but his physical condition.

As was revealed on these pages recently, Ferdinand is required to have his own daily stretching programme at United because of persistent back spasms and was recently on a course of three osteopath visits a week.

His absence from regular training is frequent enough to have set off alarms at Old Trafford about the longevity of a player who is 31 next week. The stiffness, the slowness, the general lack of mobility are bigger worries than any lapses in concentration. Ferdinand has always found the game sufficiently easy that he has been prone to let his mind slip — even when at his peak.

Sven-Göran Eriksson dropped him from the England team four years ago this month in a rare act of ruthlessness because the gifted Ferdinand, a world-class performer however much some now seek to rewrite history, appeared to be taking his place for granted.

Ferdinand’s decline will have to be deep, and lasting, for the axe to fall under Fabio Capello given that the alternatives are Matthew Upson and Joleon Lescott, neither enjoying the best of seasons, while Ledley King remains as injury-prone as ever.

But the centre half, once high on the list of reasons why England could win a World Cup, has turned into one of our greatest anxieties. We are more dependent than we dare to admit on him managing his body through to the World Cup finals in South Africa next summer. England need him to be fit.

Ferdinand himself is the only one who can really know if the reality cooking shows, the guest editing slots, the movie career and the other burgeoning business ventures are getting in the way of that.

Expect the dark side of a good man

Gordon Strachan is, according to a few people who know him well, a decent bloke “if only you could get to know him”.

So yesterday I tried, by reading his autobiography. He came over well, particularly his healthy willingness not to take himself, or the job of football management, too seriously.

He loves the sign his wife put up once in the kitchen at home, reading: “We interrupt this marriage to bring you the football season.” I admired that he took a sabbatical to prioritise his family life. The more I read, the harder it was to equate the Strachan of the book with the chippy, sneering, obnoxiously rude character who loves to belittle journalists like small boys enjoy pulling the legs off spiders. But we have all seen him do it.

“This is a job which can easily change a person, and not for the better,” Strachan wrote in his book. Now that he is back in management at Middlesbrough, how long before we see the other, darker side?