VIEW FROM THE PRESSBOX

Last updated : 04 December 2002 By Editor

Victorious amid the vitriol, Sir Alex Ferguson and Manchester United's lingering interest in this competition was extended in a snarling pocket of Lancashire last night. Only for Blackburn do the locals reserve more bile than United.

True to recent form, a local derby brimming with spite merely brought the best out of the visitors and their once maligned, now hero-worshipped Uruguayan Diego Forlan. The 23-year-old may have suffered eight months and 26 games without a goal following his £7.5m move from Independiente but, as those frustrated Burnley fans trudging home early could testify, he has come of age in some style.

Yet by the break, albeit after an early storm whipped up as much by Glen Little's waspish right foot as the home partisans, any exorcism already looked as if it would have to wait. Only during a predictably frenetic opening - the frantic claret-and-blue blur laced with spite - did Burnley threaten to disrupt either the visitors' poise or Ferguson's rather uninterested contemplation on the bench.

By then, United had eked out an advantage. Even with Arsenal looming large at the weekend, Ferguson felt compelled by neighbourly rivalry to field a quintet of his victorious starters from Anfield on Sunday. Most surprisingly, those included Ruud van Nistelrooy whose point-blank shot - after Forlan had crossed and Luke Chadwick re-centred from the right - was smothered by Marlon Beresford.

A Forlan spin and swipe wide and a Michael Stewart shot saved aside, that was as good as United mustered until Dean West self-destructed. With the full-back day-dreaming and playing Forlan onside, the Uruguayan gathered John O'Shea's pass to race clear. Van Nistelrooy may have been pleading in support, but Forlan is unrecognisable from the sheepish shambles of a month ago. His brace on Merseyside pepping up confidence, he simply slid home his sixth United goal beyond the exposed goalkeeper.

The urgency may have been all Lancastrian, West seeing his close-range shot choked by the outstanding Wes Brown, but amid the huff and puff the Mancunians' breaks threatened greater reward. Twice Daniel Pugh, on his first senior start, gathered the substitute Ole Gunner Solskjaer's fizzed crosses only to pass up on the finish - his first shot parried by Beresford, his second steered wide.

As it was, the youngster was spared too many blushes. Chadwick, twisting and turning away from two red-faced defenders and leaving Graham Branch crestfallen in his slipstream, pulled his cross to the unmarked Solskjaer. The Norwegian, with minimum fuss, instinctively lashed his shot into the roof of the net.