No-one else would get away with the constant whingeing, insulting hypocrisy that Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson regularly produces. And it has got to stop.   The insults he threw at referee Alan Wiley earlier this season, questioning his physical and mental fitness to be a referee, were a disgrace.   And three times since, Ferguson has again gone beyond reason.

The suggestion that six minutes time added to their FA Cup match against Leeds was “an insult to football” was a nonsense, which we all knew even before it was confirmed from on-high – or Graham Poll, the officials’ equivalent.

If Darren Fletcher’s dismissal against Birmingham was “the softest” Ferguson had seen in a long time, he’d missed a few, not least Wiley’s dismissal of Sunderland’s Keiron Richardson this season against…Manchester United (and, no, that wasn’t why Ferguson questioned Wiley’s fitness).

But Ferguson insults the Manchester United fans who contribute more hugely every year to his massive salary with every above-inflation ticket-price rise at Old Trafford, by pretending there is nothing of concern with Manchester United’s finances.

If there was value in the market, he says, he would spend more of the £81m the club got for Cristiano Ronaldo last summer.

Well, his judgment is shot to pieces if he thinks his current squad doesn’t need strengthening. Or he’s lying to protect the club’s owners, the Glazer family, whose reckless financial strategy has drawn most of that money to debt repayment.

Either way, it is grubby behaviour, possibly worse than the outbursts against officials, to which they all look like they’re becoming immune.

There’s no doubting Ferguson and his management team have done well to keep Manchester United in title contention with so many injuries to so many defenders.

But otherwise, Ferguson is a disgrace. And it’s time more people said so.