BY OLIVER HOLT ( The Times )

THEY can afford a bit of magnanimity at Old Trafford after scoring 26 goals in their past seven games, so they set out to take this anticlimactic goalless draw in their stride, even though it allowed Arsenal to move above them in the pursuit of Aston Villa. "I don't get much fun out of beating Newcastle anyway," Sir Bobby Charlton said, after he had filed out of the directors' box.

Alex Ferguson, usually at his most effusive in adversity, chose generosity instead of indifference. He reserved particular praise for the tactics used by Ruud Gullit, his opposite number. "I thought it was a brave selection," Ferguson said. "For a side that is supposed to be struggling, they showed great confidence."

If it was hard for many of the supporters to come to terms with a performance that fell so far short of the demolition of Brondby in the European Cup Champions' League on Wednesday, especially against a team that had leaked three goals at home to West Ham United a week ago, they could at least reflect that the disparity owed more to an improvement by Newcastle than a decline by United.

There was even a move after the game to blame the result on the 50,000 blue-nosed worms that were sprinkled on the pitch at the start of the season to try to improve drainage. The surface seemed so pock-marked and uneven that the worms must have stopped working. Newcastle never succumbed to the same temptation.

With Dietmar Hamann restored to the centre of midfield after several weeks absence and David Batty at his combative best, Newcastle played with obduracy and determination to harry their opponents out of their stride. In defence, Nikos Dabizas and the young Aaron Hughes were solid enough to stop United's recent flood of goals.

Ferguson's team have enough individual flair to wrestle free of even the most restrictive shackles and they did create several opportunities in the second half. They have dispatched harder chances with ease in recent weeks, but yesterday David Beckham, Andy Cole and Paul Scholes contrived to spurn them.

With Newcastle so determined to press United relentlessly, to close them down as fast as they could, the most fascinating contest of the match came in midfield, where Batty and Hamann were more than a match for Roy Keane and Paul Scholes.

They offered little in attack, where Alan Shearer was subdued by Gary Neville, but they could have snatched three points if fortune had favoured them. They had an appeal for a penalty turned down after Irwin had bundled over Dalglish six minutes before half-time and then, five minutes after the interval, the son of the previous manager intercepted a back-pass from Wes Brown, but saw his shot strike Peter Schmeichel.

United, as Ferguson observed, seemed a little "flat". The machine did not run smoothly. A Schmeichel goal kick hit the back of Keane's head at point-blank range, a free kick from Beckham thudded into the middle of a defensive wall and a dribble from Blomqvist ended up with the ball careering off his instep into touch. It was that sort of afternoon.

They still managed to create the best of the chances. Cole lifted his shot high over the bar early in the second half after he had chested down a chip from Brown and Scholes would surely have scored a few minutes later if Cole had not overhit his pass to him as he surged into the area.

Midway through the half, Beckham should have put United ahead when he was released by a fine through-ball from Neville and advanced unhindered towards Given. He elected to shoot with his left foot, but dragged his effort wide of the left-hand post.

Scholes might have done better when he tried to sidefoot a long cross from Irwin into the net rather than attempt a full-blooded volley and, eight minutes from the end, Yorke played a fine one-two with Cole that seemed as though it would result in another triumph for their nascent partnership, but the £12 million man overran the ball and allowed Given to pounce on it.

They had one last chance in the 86th minute, when Beckham's raking cross-field pass was headed across goal by Blomqvist, but Cole could not direct it underneath the crossbar. By then, it was as if United had recognised that their visitors deserved a draw.

Manchester United (4-4-2): P Schmeichel - W Brown (sub: R Johnsen, 58min; sub: N Butt, 83), G Neville, J Stam, D Irwin - D Beckham, R Keane, P Scholes, J Blomqvist (sub: O G Solskjaer, 89) - A Cole, D Yorke.

Newcastle United (4-4-2): S Given - L Charvet, A Hughes, N Dabizas, A Griffin - G Georgiadis, D Hamann (sub: G Speed, 66), D Batty, S Glass - A Shearer, P Dalglish.

Referee: S Dunn.