"I feel for Sheffield United but we did our best and I don't think anyone can criticise us," argued Ferguson.

"We had 25 strikes at goal, we had four shots knocked off the line and we had a stonewall penalty turned down. When Neil Warnock sees the stats of our game, he will understand we were unlucky.

"The first half was a one-horse race, then they scored right at the end of it, which was disappointing for us but they got encouragement from it.

"We had our best team on the field at the end but we won the title last week and it is understandable that took the edge off our game a little bit, so in that sense it was a good time for West Ham to play us."

However Neil Warnock didn't quite see it that way:

"I thought Sir Alex would play a stronger team today and to see him celebrating on the pitch [after being presented with the Premiership trophy] leaves a bitter taste,"

"You can blame everyone really can't you? What goes around comes around. I`m looking forward to the [FA] Cup final and the Champions League final."