Old Trafford rivals may queue up to offer sympathy but it was the winning goal that brought sweet relief at Old Trafford.
If there is one thing football managers detest even more than boardroom votes of confidence it is sympathy from rivals. Alex Ferguson will be duly appalled by the way in which not just his sworn enemy Arsène Wenger but Rafa Benítez, Jose Mourinho and Sam Allardyce have been queuing up to ladle the stuff on to the airwaves and across the back pages.
Such head-shaking, expressions of sorrow about Alex being booed by United fans at the end of last Saturday's defeat against Blackburn, were presumably offered in a spirit of utmost sincerity but they imbue Ferguson with an unaccustomed aura of vulnerability.
Not to mention prompting the man on Old Trafford's public address system to come over all Butlins Red-Coatish with the carefully emphasised tannoyed plea: "Let's get right behind Manchester United tonight."
Within minutes Ferguson was seen walking right behind his much criticised assistant, Carlos Queiroz, as, accompanied by a security man, the pair headed to the dugout. United fans are concerned that their manager has proved far too willing to go along with Queiroz's promotion of the 4-5-1 system blamed for the current goal shortage. By way of exacerbating this hostility Queiroz has told a newspaper in Portugal that such quibbles from supporters are "stupid", particularly as, in his eyes, United are actually playing 4-3-3.
Whatever the system, Ryan Giggs has struggled to make the starting line-up this season but last night the Wales winger silenced the newly audible whistles of impatience.
With United ahead courtesy of Giggs's free kick, Old Trafford was free to spend half-time wallowing in nostalgia and welcoming Brian Kidd, Ferguson's one-time sidekick on to the pitch, to draw the raffle.
When Kidd was at Blackburn, Ferguson pointedly refused to shake his former assistant's hand on the evening United rubber-stamped Rovers' relegation from the Premiership.
Here, though, everyone was reflecting on the 1968 European Cup final and United's 4-1 Wembley victory against Benfica, with Kidd scoring one of the victors' goals.
When Simao Sabrosa equalised, the United support immediately upped the decibel level. Yet sustaining such momentum proved almost as difficult as United's attempts to control the game's tempo and increasingly long silences were punctuated by frustrated gasps at yet another sloppy concession of home possession.
Van Nistelrooy's winner was greeted by relief rather than rapture as Ferguson's contention, in his programme notes, that "in fact it's just Chelsea's 100 per cent record that's making our results look a bit ordinary when, in actual fact, I think we have done okay" was looking more debatable by the minute. Wenger for Old Trafford, anyone?
