Careless United fall to a Hammer blow

THE whisky will be drawn from the finest vintage, the tumbler made from the most elegant cut glass, but there will still be a bitter after-taste to Alex Ferguson’s new year’s dram this evening.

The Scot insisted he had no plans to tone down his celebrations — which also serve as a birthday party for the Manchester United manager, who turns 66 today — but nothing piques Glasgow’s grouchiest pensioner like the spectacle of points being tossed away. When Louis Saha, the United forward, sheepishly admitted that his manager “had a bit of a go at some of the players”, it is safe to assume he was understating the case.

United could hardly have asked for a more inviting opportunity to end 2007 in the imperious manner in which they started it. West Ham, desultory at home and down to their last 16 fit players, bore the look of sacrificial victims as they strode out against a team which had been at its swaggering best in recent weeks. As it transpired, the Hammers not only dodged the knife, but managed to inflict a painful blow of their own.