Hats-off to Ferguson and United for another vintage campaign

The very last one scored in the 2007-8 Premier League season was just such a goal.

Bolton's injury-time equaliser at Stamford Bridge yesterday was entirely meaningless in itself, yet by giving Manchester United the title by a less f limsy yardstick than mere goal difference, it lent the closing League table with a meaningful air of justice.

There was, as even the most fervent Blues fan will graciously concede, only one rightful winner of this title - and it wasn't Chelsea.

They finished the season like a bullet train, but I am assured that the League is not a sprint and, for much of this captivating marathon, Chelsea were a distant second best.

Indeed, until Arsenal echoed Paula Radcliffe's aborted effort in Athens by losing every ounce of self-belief the second they were overtaken, they were third best.

United, on the other hand, ran smoothly and relentlessly from start to finish, thanks as much to their elegant solidity in central defence as their flair and invention in attack. Whether this is the finest side Sir Alex Ferguson has created, as the florid faced claret-guzzler contends, I'm not so sure.

From memory, the team of Eric Cantona, Andrei Kanchelskis and Lee Sharpe was more viscerally exciting to behold, but then the mind will play tricks on middle-aged dullards whose natural inclination is to romanticise the past.

Either way, what makes United so special, apart from the bewildering array of creative talent, is the tangible linkage between their various vintages.

To see Paul Scholes running the midfield at Wigan yesterday, and then Ryan Giggs dismissing all lingering doubt by doubling their lead, neatly underlined this unique continuity.

Referee Steve Bennett seemed to share the nostalgic glow when he failed to give Scholes an automatic second yellow card, and Chelsea fans may reflect on his performance with horror and resentment. Bennett was atrocious, in truth, not just for bottling that decision but in failing to award Wigan a penalty when ideally placed to observe Rio Ferdinand's handball when the score was 0-0.

At 93, suffering from glaucoma, rheumatoid arthritis, advanced Parkinson's, gangrene and Alzheimer's, Pierluigi Collina would be a more competent ref than this chap in his supposed prime. Then again, so would my wife's tortoise, Miles.

Yet United would still have triumphed had they fallen behind to a penalty, just as they won after trailing 0-1 in their final League match at home to Spurs in 1999 (and again, slightly more famously, in the ensuing Champions League Final) on their way to that Treble.

They were and remain a side forged in the image of their crazed but indomitable manager, and fixating on Bennett's craven inadequacy would be a futile use of emotional energy.

Far, far better for Chelsea fans to lavish all their psychic reserves on looking forward to revenge in Moscow.

From the moment Liverpool were vanquished at the Bridge, many of us have suspected that Chelsea would lose the title but win the Champions League, and I stick solidly by that hunch.

And if it comes to pass, they will merit the most lustrous of club trophies, for the passion with which they overwhelmed the Scousers in that unforgettable first period of extra-time, as undeniably as United's superior attacking ambition and aesthetic appeal makes them deserving winners of the Premier League.