Much more depressing than Roy Keane's latest descent into the red mist world which has become his occasional residence were the attempts of manager Alex Ferguson on national television to defend the indefensible.

''I do not think he swung an elbow, he put an arm across his face,'' was Ferguson's ludicrous response to Keane's latest assault on a professional footballer, an incident captured in graphic detail and replayed in slow motion for the convenience of anyone with the inclination to determine right from wrong.

''It was an innocuous incident,'' continued Ferguson. ''I think if people see it then they will judge it.''

And so they will, just as they will judge, and hopefully harshly, the most successful manager in the history of British football and his stubborn refusal to accept that Keane, or any of his players for that matter, can perpetrate the slightest misdemeanour.

True, we are accustomed to the knee-jerk reactions of managers insisting their players are innocent from a distance of more than 100 metres.

We are used to the likes of Arsene Wenger never witnessing a foul by a red shirt at Highbury and Graeme Souness abusing referees such as Steve Bennett last Wednesday night for 'missing' offences which are purely figments of the manager's own imagination.

Ferguson, however, takes hear-no-evil, see-no-evil to an entirely new plane.

Depending on what he wants to see, in Ferguson's world black becomes white, night turns into day and Roy Keane, whose paranoia has raged unchecked across print, pitch and screen these past three months, is a cross between Nelson Mandela and the Angel Gabriel.

In Ferguson's world, the press, the ones prepared to ask searching questions rather than the anodyne purveyors of television hype, are seen as the enemy for a good reason: they don't buy the misinformation Ferguson peddles.

They see in Ferguson the biggest bully in the biggest playground football has to offer and many have been banned from Ferguson's increasingly infrequent audiences for daring to say so.

If it were just about the clash of Ferguson's ego, it would barely matter. But Ferguson's dismissal of any criticism, his reluctance to do the decent thing by his profession, is as close to bringing the game into disrepute as anything in Keane's recently-published autobiography.

Which is why, as well as disciplining Keane for a book in which he admits he deliberately went out to injure another professional in the shape of Manchester City's Alfie Haaland, the Football Association must censure Ferguson.

If the association's chief executive Adam Crozier is truly committed to his crusade to clean up the game, then the top is the place to start, especially as there has long been a feeling within football that the FA are frightened of taking on the biggest and richest club in the world.

They must remind Ferguson he has a duty of care to the game, a responsibility to all those children who wear the number seven shirt of David Beckham.

Isn't it then despicable to give the worst possible example to every boy and girl up and down this soccer-mad land who kick a ball for fun and hang on to every action and word of the men in red?

That's what Ferguson did with his television comments, said in the calmest of tones yet with the earnest expression of a defence solicitor - comments which were screened on ITV's The Premiership and went out not just late on Saturday but in the special kids' slot on Sunday morning.

And, lo, what was the Sunday school lesson this week: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? No, an elbow in the head is entirely within the laws of football, so long as you wear a red shirt.

To their credit, the extent of that dreadful example was pointed out by The Premiership presenter Des Lynam and Keane's actions were further criticised by his former Irish team-mate Andy Townsend and former Manchester United manager Ron Atkinson.

It is no longer, however, merely the sorry story of an Irish loner seemingly hell-bent on his own highly public version of footballing hara-kiri.

It is about the credibility and decency of the world's most famous club and by association the image of English football.

Crozier must tackle the Manchester 'monster' now.