So there it is. Fergie's cracked up at last. The empire is crumbling before our eyes. Manchester United won't win another trophy this season. The wheels have come off. Fergie's lost the dressing-room, he's lost his marbles, he's gone pear-shaped. Oh what a noble mind is here o'erthrown!

I can't bring you the quotes because the only person he's still talking to these days is himself, and that without cessation. When a manager announces that the team who lost 4-1 were the better side, you know that his prize for being manager of the season will be one of those nice waistcoats that does up at the back.

Manchester United lost again this weekend, 2-0 away to Fulham. They had two players sent off. It was a horror show. And yes, once again the temptation to write off United and commence the obituaries on Sir Alex Ferguson's career is before us. But you'll excuse me if I swerve it this time.

If you want the general drift, you can look up the sort of thing I was saying when Ferguson got rid of Paul Ince and tried to win everything with a bunch of boys. Or when he got rid of Jaap Stam. Or when he tried to outcool John Magnier. Or when he fell out with David Beckham.

And no doubt there have been a few other occasions I've forgotten. I have written the decline and fall of the Fergusonian Empire again and again — only for the empire to kick out the Goths and Vandals and get on with the business of ruling the world again.

The thing is that one day, there'll be an opportunity to write off Ferguson and/or Manchester United — and this time it will be correct. There must come a moment when the force fades, when United no longer dominate football. Look at Real Madrid, once the mightiest of them all, now shrugged aside by Liverpool.

The mighty do fall. They always do in the end. But - and this across the years has been a crucial part of the success of United - Ferguson has been able to deal with one crisis after another and still carry on winning football matches. His and his team's ability to cope with trauma and change has been remarkable.

I am increasingly convinced that United and Ferguson have not prospered in spite of these traumas. Rather, they have prospered because of them. Trauma is Ferguson's method. Drama, excitement, insecurity, fear, trouble and strife: all these things have marked Ferguson's time as manager. And they have not interfered with success, they have been instrumental in his success.

That is what has fooled me so many times before. Now, I suspect I am doomed to miss the moment when final, inevitable implosion at last happens. Is it now, though? Is Fergie really cracking up this time?

Of course he's cracking up. Cracking up has been the secret of his method for the past 20 years.

Danger in England's World Cup cricket victory

So England won the World Cup, and a splendid and comprehensive victory it was. The England women's cricket team beat New Zealand in the final yesterday and did so with great style and purpose and confidence. No doubt there will be plenty of people telling us that Charlotte Edwards and the girls should get the same publicity as the men.

They don't. They're not to be compared to the men. They are fabulous for themselves alone, and for that reason I salute them: stylish, effective, united, fully baked. This was a splendid effort.

Still, I wonder how they'd deal with the publicity the men get. They'd love to find out, no doubt, and I dare say they'd learn to deal with it, too. But they may not like it.

One of the points of big-time sport is that everybody is watching you and everybody will see you fail. The image of your greatest achievement or of your worst moment will become part of folklore for years to come. Ask Jonny Wilkinson, ask Chris Waddle, who both kicked the ball over the bar on significant occasions.

All international sport is hard, but the more people that watch you, the more complete are your failures and the more fleeting your victories.

West Indies get their just deserts

I would like to thank John Dyson for his audition for the job of head coach of the England cricket team. In his present avatar as coach of West Indies, he committed the ludicrous error of bringing his players off for bad light and thereby ensuring their defeat.

His misreading of the Duckworth-Lewis table was not only the work of a piffling amateur, it was also the mark of a man so desperately mean-spirited as to lose the whole point of sport — competition, struggle, getting out there and bloody doing it.

Under Dyson's leadership, West Indies ground out three stupendously tedious Test-match draws and in doing so won the series 1-0. Dyson may have got his win, but he also did a great deal to destroy Test cricket by giving us 15 days of more or less meaningless sport.

He then tried to destroy one-day cricket as an encore. Let's not play the silly game. After all, if we do that, we might lose. So off West Indies came and then discovered that instead of winning, they had, er, lost.

No one understands how the Duckworth-Lewis method works, but everybody agrees that the right team generally wins when it's called into play. Well, here was the greatest moral triumph for the system yet: Dyson got bitten on the bum twice over, once by Duckworth and once by Lewis. Few things could have served him righter.

Dyson's achievement in sucking the life out of cricket shows a spirit that should be hounded out of sport. He has just killed three Test matches and a one-dayer in rapid succession. At least his application for the England job can now be placed in the round wicker file on the floor.

A great result for Ireland and rugby

Sorry I wasn't there for the Wales-Ireland match. I don't mean sorry I wasn't in Wales, I mean sorry I wasn't in Dublin. A wonderful piece of sport, a wonderful result, a wonderful conclusion. The Irish have always been examples to the English of the way we'd really like to be if only we were a little less English: a bit more easy-mannered, a bit more open to ideas, a little less frightened by intellectual notions and a bit better, not at drinking, but at conviviality.

So naturally I was cheering for Ireland — though rugby is one of the few sports not to be mentioned in Ulysses - and the result was a great one for Ireland, for rugby, and for the wannabe Irish all over England. We'd love to be part of the craic, if only we knew what it meant and how you did it.