'Give us back our boring football! We want 4-5-1! Just when Premiership football seemed ready to take itself into the drawing room with a pearl handled revolver, it decided to turn the gun on negativity instead to produce an old-fashioned encounter befitting the surroundings of Fulham's lovely antique of a stadium.
The creaky old Cottage is a Premiership anachronism in these days of shiny, Lego-style stadiums and the £757 million state-of-the-art Wembley national arena that is to be unveiled soon. Allegedly. So it was fitting that it should host a game that looked as though it was being beamed into the ground from an old newsreel. Goals all over the place, mazy runs, thumping shots from 50 yards, central defenders falling over one another. And Wayne Rooney.
The only people guaranteed to have loathed every entertaining minute of it were the two managers and their coaches, particularly United No 2 Carlos Quieroz, the high priest of defensive football and the man accused of turning the club from the Harlem Globetrotters to George Graham's Arsenal.
If the England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson had been here, he would have been drooling over the prospect of Rooney - finally restored to his rightful place alongside Ruud van Nistelrooy up front - taking apart Poland in next week's final World Cup qualifier at Old Trafford. But he would have been alarmed by Rio Ferdinand's performance in central defence. He was at fault for both Fulham goals.
United manager Sir Alex Ferguson claims to be a fan of kamikaze football, but he draws the line at kamikaze defending, especially from a player who spent so long prevaricating over signing his new contract in the summer.’