IT WAS just as well that Manchester United won on Saturday Old Trafford was becoming so quiet you could hear the tinkling of the tills.
At least the 1-0 win over Arsenal drew a decent shout of exultation from the Premier League's biggest crowd to date - 55,210 which was 12 more than the previous record, set when Chelsea won 2-1 at Old Trafford a fortnight earlier. The difference was that this time the United XI turned up and Peter Schmeichel's goalkeeping was worth an extra man.
Alex Ferguson has offered a thought on why English football's grandest cathedral has become a whispering gallery of late. Too many spectators, he feels, come to admire the view rather than support the team. "That's all very well," he said after Saturday's match, "but it's no use to me, and no use to the players."
He had already expanded this theory in the match programme. "When a party from overseas comes across, they come for a nice weekend, sit and admire the ground and then wait to be entertained, just as if they were at the theatre for a musical. No passion, no commitment, just a lovely day out."
The latter sentence just about summed up Manchester United's last Champions League performance, except that the day went to Fenerbahce, who ended United's 40 year unbeaten European home record with a deflected shot from their Bosnian striker Elvir Bolic.
On Wednesday, Ferguson resumes his quest for a place in the Champions League quarter finals when Juventus, who are all but through, visit Old Trafford with Alen Boksic, the Croatian whose goal did for United in Turin, still enjoying prolific European form.
Juventus will have a lot on their minds from Manchester they are going to Tokyo for the World Club Championship game with River Plate - but United still needed Saturday's win to clear their own heads of growing self doubt.
The winning goal may have owed more to luck than judgment four of those involved in the move were playing for the opposition and the scorer was Winterburn, the Arsenal leftback. But the performance should have gone some way towards purging United's memories of a dolorous 14 days which included 5-0 and 6-3 defeats at Newcastle and Southampton.
There were several reasons for the improvement. Giggs, starting his first game in over a month following a calf injury, began quietly but by the second half was taking on defenders with much of his old elan. Cantona, whose large white shorts were wrapped around him like an apron, looked like someone reporting for duty at a restaurant but was no longer playing with a French waiter's world weary air.
The control he showed in bringing the ball down from chest to foot before setting up Beckham for a shot which cannoned off a post in the 12th minute was pure Cantona. Beckham and the hard working Butt, moreover, minimised the effect of losing Keane to suspension and did much to prevent Vieira establishing the lines of communication with Wright which had been so important to Arsenal's recent winning sequence.
Yet Arsenal were one foreign coach party who had not come to Old Trafford to gawp at the landscape. For half the game they were quicker and sharper into the tackle than Manchester United, passed with more imagination and looked capable of extending Arsene Wenger's six match unbeaten record at Arsenal
That this did not happen was due to Wright's inability, for once, to take his chances, the consistency with which Johnsen denied him more and, above all, the restoration of Schmeichel's confidence in United's goal.
