There have been many versions of precisely what Roy Keane said in his infamous and never-broadcast interview with Manchester United's in-house television station that went under the name of Play the Pundit.
Recorded four years ago after a 4-1 defeat at Middlesbrough, the Irishman is said to have lambasted Rio Ferdinand's repeated defensive errors and questioned the ability of men such as Alan Smith, Kieran Richardson and Liam Miller, not that it prevented him signing the last two when manager of Sunderland. He is also supposed to have said: "I don't know why people in Scotland rave about Darren Fletcher."
If this were true, the unforgiving Irishman displayed a rare lack of perception. A few days after the broadcast was pulled by MUTV and Keane's fate at Old Trafford was settled, United faced a Chelsea side that under José Mourinho had taken 31 points from 33 and almost wrapped up the championship by the beginning of November. United won 1-0, a victory sealed by a header from Fletcher and, as he walked off, Sir Alex Ferguson gave a bow to the Stretford End, a signal that even in the deepest adversity he could still conjure a few tricks, that his regime was not dying.
Ferguson remarked that now he rarely looks at Scotland for potential talent. The boy from Dalkeith, on the road south from Edinburgh, was an exception. In 2005 Fletcher's inclusion was seen as stopgap; now his selection for this afternoon's encounter at Stamford Bridge is almost automatic, despite a chipped ankle bone that means he cannot kick a ball without discomfort.
"There are two or three of this squad who would always expect to play in a big game and Darren is one of them," Ferguson said this week. "He is a big-game player and has proved that time and time again. It took a long time for the public and the press to acknowledge that but we knew what his impact was going to be."
It took Ferguson a while. Fletcher admitted he spent the summer of 2008 wondering why he had started only five Premier League games and asking himself whether he would be joining Miller and Richardson on the road out of Old Trafford. This morning he appears a certainty in a midfield full of question marks.
"You would have to have played the game or played alongside him to realise how good Darren Fletcher is. He is not a footballer who grabs headlines just as Denis Irwin wasn't," said Paddy Crerand, who formed part of the Manchester United midfield that swept to the 1968 European Cup. "But they were both indispensable.
"I first came across Darren when he was playing for United at under-15 level and it was obvious how good he was going to be. But whether it was because of injury or because he was never a glamour player, the recognition was slow to come. But in the last couple of years I have lost count of the number of Manchester United fans who have come up to me and said that Fletcher is the most important midfielder at the club.
"You look at the big matches he has turned. It is not just the Chelsea game, it was the Manchester derby [in which Fletcher scored twice] and the 4-0 win over Arsenal in the FA Cup. He is a very intelligent player, as clever as Paul Scholes, but that cleverness is not so obvious from the stands. United will need him at Stamford Bridge because to me that Chelsea midfield is formidable and I said back in August that anyone who finishes above them will win the title."
As he prepared for a journey to a ground where he has not won since April 2002, Ferguson talked almost nostalgically of the days when he would roll out Keane, David Beckham, Ryan Giggs, Scholes and maybe Nicky Butt and have in front of him the best midfield in the country and perhaps the world – for game after game.
"We can't do that now, we have to rotate the team," said Ferguson. "Every Manchester United game is harder than anyone else's. Everyone lifts their performance against us and the pace is incredible, so you cannot play the same players all the time and you have to think of the make-up of these footballers as well.
"Ten years ago Keane, Beckham, Giggs were young, fresh and determined and they could run all day. Scholes was a different type of player of course. They were blessed with these abilities but we don't have those players any more."
Replacing that quintet has been one of Ferguson's most persistent stumbling blocks, encompassing the expensive failed experiment with Juan Sebastián Verón to the duds that were Kleberson and Eric Djemba-Djemba. Ferguson has an array of players – Nani, Anderson, Antonio Valencia, Michael Carrick and Owen Hargreaves – who cost £16m-£18m each and who collectively have made little decisive contribution to United's three successive championships that were won by Cristiano Ronaldo's brilliance, Wayne Rooney's work-rate and a beautifully-drilled defence that now is showing signs of fatigue.
Fifteen years after Scholes and Giggs first played together they are still vital cogs in Ferguson's machine. It is like going to Newlands and seeing Graham Gooch and Michael Atherton open the batting for England in Cape Town this winter – wonderful but slightly worrying.
Darren Fletcher is good at heading. He is a ball winner in the middle of the field..= )