Ryan Giggs takes Manchester United back to the top

At the end, as the final whistle was blown, four West Ham United players flocked towards Ryan Giggs, all of them asking whether they could have the shirt off his back. It was like seeing a Western tourist being pestered on a beach in Koh Samui, but, charming to the last, Giggs offered an apologetic smile and a handshake and continued on his way, accepting an embrace from Paul Scholes and, finally, the adulation of the celebrating Manchester United supporters.

This was just another ordinary afternoon in the extraordinary life of Giggs, an occasion that will barely merit a footnote when the time comes to reflect on the career of the most decorated player in English football history. But, at the venerable age of 35, in the autumn of his football life, his every contribution is to be savoured. The second-half goal that sent United back to the top of the Barclays Premier League was merely a minor classic — a couple of delightful body swerves and a right-foot shot that deceived Robert Green — but, in the wider context, coming on his 786th appearance for the club as he approaches the 18th anniversary of his first-team debut, it seemed to carry an additional symbolism.

A generation of West Ham supporters have witnessed Giggs playing at Upton Park, going back to his first visit as a skinny teenager in April 1992 in the fateful week when United blew their chance of a first league title in a quarter of a century.

Since then, Giggs has won the Premier League no fewer than ten times and, never one to rest on his laurels, has set his heart on winning an eleventh, as he showed yet again yesterday with a performance that disproved any lingering doubts that people may have about whether he owes his place in the team to Sir Alex Ferguson’s underestimated sentimental streak.

It was not just the goal. It was the intelligence, the workrate, the willingness to run the extra mile. These qualities were why Ferguson selected him in an unfamiliar role on the right wing, in order to give young Rafael Da Silva the kind of protection that Cristiano Ronaldo, even with the best intentions, could never provide.