James Corrigan: Hansen and Lawro duck grudge match with Fergie

View From The Sofa: Match Of The Day, BBC

There is nothing quite as demoralising, as depressing, as utterly soul-sapping as the final Match of the Day of the season. Sitting there on that ever-enveloping couch when, for the last time, Gary says a wholly inappropriate quip about the size of Hansen's and Lawro's bottoms, the realisation suddenly hits home that Saturday nights (or indeed early Sunday mornings if you have a) a social life or b) a family) will soon be filled with hours of nothingness during which the idle consciousness will inevitably be invaded by philosophical dilemmas.

Such as: if Didier Drogba falls over in the box and there is nobody there to witness it, does he still make a noise? (Or does he simply get up, shake himself down and then berate himself for switching to the SPL in the first place?)

We will never know, of course, just as we will probably never discover if Sir Alex actually allows the BBC channels to be on in Ferguson Towers or if Cathy has to pretend she's just nipping up to update his entry on Wikipedia and proceeds to watch EastEnders on the iPlayer, with headphones poked under curlers.

You really have to admire Ferguson's commitment to the feud. Granted, there must be occasions – perhaps, when Ronaldo has thrown a hissy or when Tevez has gone all Citizen Smith – when he is quite happy that his eternal boycott of the corporation – let's call it his "Fergwa" – precludes him from doing the (supposedly) obligatory post-match interviews. But in the main, the old boy is missing out. And this weekend provided the most obvious example of Mr Nose going chop-chop.

There is surely no point in having the crowning glory without the crowing glory and when one considers how much fun he could have had throwing the odd barb in the direction of Rafa and Anfield, one can approximate the scale of Ferguson's self-sacrifice.

Instead what we were left with were comments from Gary Neville (the finest non-playing captain since Tony Jacklin) and Ryan Giggs (who, incidentally, spent so much time wrapped in cotton wool in his formative days that the damned stuff actually took over his vocabulary). What was required was insight. Alas, what we got was Hansen and Lawro pointing out that it is no coincidence that "great" teams, "great" players and "great" managers always seem to capture the "great" prizes. And yes, how "great" it all was.

Naturally, the body language and voice-box language (if there is such a thing) of these two Liverpool stalwarts told a radically different story. At best their tone could be described as "reverential"; rather like two Spartans discussing the achievements of their Ancient Greek neighbours. ("I suppose you've got to hand it to those Athenians, that whole democracy thingy isn't the shabbiest idea. And OK, Isosceles is rather handy with his triangles.") Perhaps when United next win the title, probably in about 38 episodes' time, the Match of the Day producers can have a pundit on hand without a punnet of rotting grapes wedged in his larynx.

Still, Shearer will be back by then. Oh, how MOTD has yearned for their marksman's uncanny ability to strike right at the heart of any footballing problem and deliver his instant and unequivocal solution. With his background, it can only be suspected that Shearer would have been particularly useful in the studio debate concerning the ongoing crisis at Newcastle. Wor Alan would have had some chuffing answers. No doubt about it.