Michael Vaughan has always been an accomplished performer in front of the microphone and camera, a cricketing version of Tony Blair perhaps. It is not often he says the "wrong" thing, and having been accused of doing so over the "Fredalo" incident on Sunday, he put on a relaxed and plausible performance at an Old Trafford press conference today.

His claim that he had not used the word "Fredalo" - the implication of that one word being that Flintoff alone was responsible for the drinking binge that also involved five other England players in St Lucia in March - was a convenient get-out clause. But even if he had, would it have really mattered? It's only a pun - and quite a funny one that was dreamt up by headline-writers at the time. And what is really wrong with an England captain making a statement of fact? Namely that team morale in the Caribbean was affected by the whole incident. Let's face it, even if morale had been better, England were simply not good enough to reach the World Cup semi-finals anyway.

So Vaughan cannot really be judged to have erred. Part of his brilliance as a leader is to give it straight to his players. He would doubtless have chided Flintoff in the Caribbean for making it difficult for the players to go out after the Fredalo incident. He would have said it with a smile and Flintoff would have taken it in his considerable stride. The consequences of the whole Fredalo episode have indeed been blown out of all proportion. Flintoff, himself, paid the penalty for it by losing the vice-captaincy. It is all in the past now, even if some sections of the media have relished dragging it out again. As quickly as it re-appeared in the form of some ill-advised new headlines, the whole affair has disappeared back into history, where it belongs.