THE act of a madman or just a storm in a tea-cup? Public opinion currently seems to be divided over the David Beckham 'bootgate' affair.

But as far as I'm concerned, 'Sir' Alex Ferguson's behaviour after the event has been far more disgraceful than anything he did in the Old Trafford dressing room on Saturday afternoon.

Rovers boss Graeme Souness openly admits the fact he's thrown a few tea-services in his time.

But these days he's had to adapt his managerial style, partly because of health grounds, and partly to suit the modern game.

So maybe it's time he passed some of his medication onto Fergie.

How can a manager kick a football boot in his star player's face and then sit back and think he doesn't need to issue some sort of public apology for the way he lost his rag?

All he had to do on Monday morning was utter that tiny little word 'sorry' and all this would have become yesterday's chip-paper.

But instead, he steadfastly refused to budge an inch on the issue, probably taking the stance that any kind of show of humility was a sign of weakness.

For me, that's not the act of a great manager because great managers don't allow the focus to be taken away from their team's preparations for a big game like the one United face against Juventus tonight.

Put it this way, if my boss completely lost it with me and decided to kick a keyboard in my face then I'd expect an immediate apology and a guarantee that it wouldn't happen again.

That's the only way we could continue to have any kind of working relationship and I think I'd actually respect him more if he admitted he was in the wrong.

There's a fat chance of Fergie doing that, however.

The events of the last few days have shown him up for what he is -- a stubborn barbarian who likes to try and bully his players.

It's a managerial style which used to be in vogue 20 years ago but these days it looks positively archaic.

At the end of the day, the whole Beckham affair has been blown totally out of proportion. For the tabloids to say that he could have been blinded is grossly exaggerated.

In fact, Fergie even went out of his way to stress that Becks didn't even have stitches, almost as if he was offering that as some kind of defence.

So where does their relationship go from here? Can they patch things up and let bygones be bygones?

To be honest, I don't really care -- I'm getting sick and fed up of the whole affair.

But what it does show is bullying doesn't work as well as it used to a decade or so ago.

Maybe Fergie would be better off using his time to teach Ryan Giggs how to shoot straight -- just like him!