Professional Manchester United fan and rather good writer Jim White is always keen to cast a wry eye on the goings-on at Old Trafford and consider their implications.

Jim writes for the Daily Telegraph and says Fergie's best-laid plans have taken a jolt this week.

Sir Alex Ferguson is a planner. He likes it when things go according to schedule.

Sir Alex Ferguson's scheming reckoned without super-agent Pini Zahavi

This week, then, will not have been one he relished. First Nemanja Vidic, the player around whom he proposed to structure Manchester United’s defence for the next five years, made public an itch to move to warmer climes. Then Ferguson’s young second string lost to Besiktas, thus imperilling United’s seeding for the last 16 of the Champions League. And to cap it all, Darren Ferguson was overlooked for the Portsmouth job.

It has long been a theory of this column that Ferguson’s preferred candidate as his successor at Old Trafford is his son. What better way to seal his legacy than to install a dynasty. Plus, with his own boy in charge, he could move away from the dugout but still maintain involvement. The arrangement seemed to be running perfectly to time. Darren had got a couple of years of experience under his belt at Peterborough. The time was now right for a move to a Premier League club to complete his apprenticeship before heading to Manchester when the old man retires. The timeline will now have to be extended after Fergie jnr was pipped to the Pompey job following the intervention of someone who, as a backroom schemer, makes Fergie snr look less Lord Mandelson and more Lord Triesman.

But who's behind the failure of the last of these? How did Avram Grant get the job meant for Fergie's annointed son? It's the chap behind many a megadeal of recent years.

But then Grant does have one big advantage. His best friend is Pini Zahavi, the so-called super agent, the man behind many of modern football’s more intriguing mysteries, such as the career of Sven-Goran Eriksson. Zahavi. In fact, if Zahavi can manoeuvre his chum Avram into a manager’s job in the league that likes to pride itself as the world’s most competitive, Lord Triesman really should get in touch pronto. Never mind Gary Lineker, his lordship should put Zahavi in charge of England’s World Cup 2018 bid tomorrow. Clearly, this is a man who could sell anything to anyone.