Even the suggestion his hunger for success may have waned prompted Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson into an angry rebuke of one journailist, and his players have been towing the same line on the morning after defeat to Barcelona in the Champions League final.

Ferguson was visibly dismayed by his side's inability to cope with the possession football of the Spanish champions in the 2-0 defeat at the Stadio Olimpico, but the Scot reserved the 'hairdryer' treatment for one brave journalist who asked the Old Trafford bosss to give an assurance that the determination to win more prizes still burns within him.

Ferguson responded with a steely glare before saying: "I don't understand that question on a night like this. I don't know why you're asking me that question. It's a bloody stupid question."

erguson was embarrassed at the way his side, especially his defence, played against Barcelona, who won comfortably, courtest of goals form Samuel Eto'o and Lionel Messi.

Embarrassed, too, perhaps, by the way he was outfoxed by a young managerial pup in Josep Guardiola, cutting his teeth in his first coaching year by winning La Liga, the Copa del Rey and the Champions League, the first time such a treble has been achieved in Spanish football.

Guardiola's decision to withdraw Messi from his wide front role to a midfield berth wrenched the early initiative from United every bit as much as the first goal from Eto'o when he stepped inside a flat-footed Nemanja Vidic.

"The first goal in particular gave them a great boost. And I think thereafter with Messi dropping into midfield it made it difficult to get the ball back off them," Ferguson reflected. "The disappointment was the use of the ball when we got possession. You have to wait for minutes to get the ball back from them and when we did we didn't use it well enough.

"Normally we are better than that. Maybe it was an off night. Maybe the mountain was too big to climb after being a goal down. Who knows?"

Rio Ferdinand was also in the dark about the lacklustre performance but insists the side will come back stronger.

For a side who has just completed a hat-trick of Premier League title successes, it seems a harsh way to end the campaign.

"If we had won it would have been an unbelievable end to the season but we knew if we lost we would be finishing on a low no matter what we had achieved before," he said. "We were not silly enough to think the garden will always be rosy

"We are grown men. We can handle it. We just have to brush ourselves down and come back stronger."

Ferdinand offered no opinion on where it went wrong for United, but added: "To play a team like Barcelona you need your A game. We didn't have it.

"We did well in those first 10 minutes. If we had scored then it might have been a different game.

"But we gave away two soft goals at crucial points in the game and didn't put away the chances we had.

"In a Champions League final, if you do not play well, either as individuals or a collective unit, you do not deserve to win."

Like his manager, though, Ferdinand is confident when the new campaign begins again in August, the Red Devils will be fully motivated.

"The belief is still there," he said. "We have come a long way in these last few years.

"You do not lose all that by getting beaten in one match.

"We need strength of character now but we have it in abundance."