ROY Keane accused Sir Alex Ferguson of not knowing the meaning of the word loyalty last week after he raked over the details of Manchester United's dressing-room disputes in his new autobiography, but if anyone has earned the right to tell his side of the story it is Fergie.

From what I can tell from the blanket coverage the book has received in the media, although everybody has jumped on two or three stories, it is generally balanced and statesmanlike and if I was going to buy it of course I would want to know the ins and outs of Fergie's relationships with the likes of Keane, David Beckham, and Wayne Rooney.

Very rarely was he critical at the time so why shouldn't he tell all the stories he wants now? If I was one of his players I wouldn't have a problem if he told a story about me.

While I can't say I have been hugely surprised by anything I have read or heard in the last week - most items were covered fairly extensively at the time - it is sad to witness the breakdown of his relationship with Keane, because the pair were so tight for years.

But then maybe we shouldn't be so surprised, when you consider how headstrong both men are. You can tell there is still an admiration there - it is always Roy this, Roy that, while Ferguson usually uses second names for those he doesn't admire - but the root of the trouble between the pair was an incident in 2005 when Keane went on MUTV and savagely criticised team-mates such as Rio Ferdinand and Darren Fletcher.

If you are asking me, the Irishman was bang out of order doing that and Fergie was in the right. I only appreciate that even more now I am working on the coaching side of things.

Managers, coaches and assistants speak about stuff like that all the time: he might be your star player but you have to take a stand. If you let him off with it then you will be in trouble with others down the line and it could result in anarchy in your dressing room.

Perhaps Keane thought he was doing the gaffer's job for him, that he could have a blast because he was the club captain, but it wasn't his place to do it. He is daft if he thought Sir Alex was going to stand by him at that moment and just let him tear his players to shreds.

Maybe he thought he would escape with a fine, but it is totally in keeping with the way Ferguson operates that he should interpret it as a challenge to his authority and decide to get rid of him altogether.

One of the other items which has been taken up by the media were some mildly disparaging comments about Steven Gerrard, when Fergie said he wasn't a "top, top player". While I think Ferguson was right about Keane, I think he is wrong about Gerrard.

I have watched Gerrard for years and with those penetrating, driving runs of his, that ability to pass the ball, and great engine to get up and down the park, there is no doubt he was the best midfielder in England, and definitely one of the top players, of the last decade.

I know for a fact Chelsea under Jose Mourinho were close to buying him, and even Ferguson himself was sniffing around him back at the turn of the millennium. So I can't understand why he would say that, unless it was a wee parting shot on the Manchester United-Liverpool rivalry or because he never succeeded in luring him to Old Trafford.

I never had the privilege of working with Sir Alex but I did spend half-an-hour in his company at the owners' winners bar at Aintree. The horse I co-owned with Craig Moore, Lampion du Bost, had won a big race over the Grand National fences and when you win a race there you go to the owners' Winner's Bar for a glass of champagne.

The only people in there were trainer Paul Nicholls and Sir Alex. He stood and spoke to me about horses and football and if his horse hadn't been running in the next race I am sure he would have hung about blethering longer.

I have met a lot of famous footballers in my life - Michael Owen, Gerrard, Rio Ferdinand, Kevin Keegan - but no-one has a bigger aura about them than Ferguson. I found out a week later that his wife Cathy had bet on my horse to win the race at 66-1. The one thing there is almost no mention of in the book is the dispute with John Magnier over the stud rights of the thoroughbred racehorse he co-owned, Rock of Gibraltar. Despite his big profile - and you can see just how big it is from the world-wide interest about this book - that was one battle Ferguson just couldn't win.

As the Keane example shows, one thing Fergie was always brilliant at was picking the right time to move players on. Whether it was Keane, Beckham, Jaap Stam or Paul Ince, he always dealt with each of them on an individual basis.

Now David Moyes might find himself in a similar situation and I think his fellow Scot also won't have a problem knowing when it is time for senior players to go, and put his trust in younger ones.

Whoever took over from Fergie was always going to struggle but Moyes will come good. And I don't think it will take him three seasons to get things right at Old Trafford either.