Ferguson sharpens his title appetite

Manchester United 3 West Ham United

Under a manager who likes to make the most of an early start – Sir Alex Ferguson can normally be found in his office by 8am – Manchester United are getting to enjoy their bracing Saturday mornings. For the third week in succession they tucked into lunch with three points tucked away, West Ham, as expected, having proved even less troublesome opposition than Liver- pool and Arsenal over the past fortnight.

An eight-goal victory would have put United on top of the Premiership for the first time this season, and when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Juan Sebastian Veron scored in the first quarter of the game against a demoralised-looking side, such a margin was not out of the question – the visitors were, after all, spanked 7-1 three seasons ago, before achieving unlikely 1-0 victories in their next two visits.

In the event, their defence, involved in a catchweight contest against Ruud van Nistelrooy and whoever happened to be supporting him at any given time, managed to limit further damage to one self-inflicted wound, an own goal by Sebastien Schemmel.

That left them rooted to the bottom of the table without a win in nine matches. United have won seven out of seven in all competitions since an eventful 1-1 draw at Upton Park. They have jumped from 10th place to their current position, lead their group as the Champions' League goes into hibernation and, as Ferguson said: "You could see the confidence all over the pitch."

It was no problem that Rio Ferdinand, Roy Keane and Nicky Butt remained unavail-able, and they could equally well have done without David Beckham; England's captain was given 45 minutes as a replacement for Solskjaer to show off his new Rod Stewart hairstyle. Rod, the former Brentford apprentice, would have been more effective.

There were no others off-key in red shirts; Veron impressed again, and at the back Wes Brown and Mikaël Silvestre looked a sound partnership once more, with John O'Shea giving another performance at left-back to delight the Republic of Ireland as much as his club.

West Ham were not fav-oured with the breaks they needed from the officials, having an early penalty claim ignored and a strike by Jerm-ain Defoe, last season's match-winner, wrongly chalked off just before half-time.

The continuing absence of Paolo di Canio and Frédéric Kanouté illustrated the differ-ence in resources. Defoe, the rapier, received no help from the clunking broadsword Ian Pearce, and apart from Defoe's disallowed goal, their first effort on target was a flying interception by United's Brown that Fabien Barthez did well to keep out. It took 78 minutes.

By the end, West Ham's loyalists were turning their atten-tion to Terence Brown, the unloved £477,000 per annum chairman who talks of "belt-tightening" rather than the wallet-opening that fans want.

After a quarter of an hour, David James having kept out O'Shea's header from a corner at his near post, the Cockneys were cocky enough to taunt the home fans for their lukewarm vocal encouragement. Bad move. Within two minutes Old Trafford was on the boil and celebrating two goals.

Solskjaer ventured into the centre and headed in a cross by Gary Neville, with a helpful deflection from the acc-ommodating Tomas Repka. It was a 10th goal in 20 starts for the Norwegian, rather more than a super-sub these days. Barely a minute later Repka, still annoyed, had a hack at Van Nistelrooy 30 yards out, and Veron curled the free-kick immaculately inside a post.

Joe Cole, keeping the captain's armband despite the return of the more senior Steve Lomas, administered a rollock-ing for the slack marking that allowed Ryan Giggs to meet Veron's corner, which Lomas blocked. Minutes later, Van Nistelrooy was offside as he knocked in Giggs' pass. Then he easily turned inside Christian Dailly, forcing a save.

Although West Ham were not much of a force, they had just reason to berate the officials. In the first 90 seconds, their manager Glenn Roeder was not the only observer who felt that Defoe had been illegally taken out by Phil Neville just inside the penalty area. "Jermain clearly squeezed the ball between two defenders and was brought down," he said. In the final minute of the half, Solskjaer hit a clearance straight at Scott Minto, an unexpected rebound apparently prompting the referee's assistant into raising his flag as Defoe beat Barthez.

Dejected or not, West Ham managed a brief show of defiance at the start of the second half, showing some of the verve that had earned a point at Upton Park four weeks ago. Cole, outshone by United's glittering diamond midfield, burst to the byline but the dependable O'Shea cleared as Lomas waited. Soon James had to defy Van Nistelrooy, sent through again by his principal prompter, Giggs. Just after the hour came the third Hammer blow: a smooth move from Phil Neville to Paul Scholes, out to the overlapping Gary Neville, whose low cross was turned in by Schemmel.

The cerebral James had calculated that West Ham could stay up by taking four points from every three games and that he needed to keep 10 clean sheets in 21 remaining games. Make that 10 in 20; and consider how formidable a task it is given the level of protection in front of him.