Manchester Utd 4  Derby 1:Bottom of the league, battered and beleaguered, with the chilly fingers of relegation already closing round thouteir throats, it says everything about Derby County's predicament that their overwhelming feeling after sieving four goals to Manchester United was not embarrassment, or foreboding, but relief that it had not been even worse.

"We didn't want to be humiliated," said Paul Jewell and, mission accomplished, there was even a sense of replenished optimism about the feat of escapology that will be needed for them to clamber to safety.

It is certainly a strange set of circumstances when four goals are scored past one goalkeeper, with only one at the other end, and both managers claim to be relatively satisfied.The facts were stark. United's primary objective was to add a nice sheen to their goal difference while Derby's was all about damage limitation.

With a goals-against column before kick-off that was worse than the combined totals of United, Chelsea, Liverpool and Arsenal, it was about maintaining a semblance of honour and avoiding utter degradation and, on that basis, Jewell and his players could even congratulate themselves on a job well done.

What they never did, thankfully, was insult our intelligence by pretending they had come to Old Trafford expecting anything else but a defeat. David versus Goliath is a nice story, but not one that will be practised in football terms at Old Trafford, where the artillery is significantly more advanced than a sling and stone.

The game ceased being a contest as soon as Ryan Giggs gobbled up a rebound from Cristiano Ronaldo's shot and Derby's defending quickly reverted to type. "Schoolboy stuff" was the description Jewell applied after his players allowed Carlos Tevez, at his hustling, harrying best, to score a scruffy second five minutes later.

Jewell's sense of satisfaction stemmed from that fact that it was not as chastening an ordeal as might have been anticipated.

Wayne Rooney tormented his opponents at times in the second half and Giggs, having become the 11th player in United's history to score 100 league goals, volleyed against the post. Tevez angled in his eighth goal of his inaugural season at Old Trafford when, once again, nobody in the Derby defence was old-fashioned enough to put in a challenge and, in stoppage time, Ronaldo scored for the sixth successive game after clipping Tyrone Mears to win a generous penalty.

In between, however, Derby surprised everyone when they broke forward with pace and purpose and, with nobody really expecting anything, Mears whipped over a cross for another substitute, Steve Howard, to bundle in a goal that had the crowd rubbing their eyes.

People do strange things when they are in shock and Derby's supporters celebrated as though it were a last-minute winner. It was a peculiar moment, watching 3,000 people writhing around in raucous glee when, in reality, Goliath was giving David a good pummelling. And the thought occurred - what will it be like when Derby actually win a game?