Where United's latest win ranks

No prizes for guessing which brand of lager was waiting for Manchester United’s victorious players as, their shirts drenched in cheap champagne, they returned to their dressing-room with the Carling Cup yesterday. No prizes, either, for guessing that they passed up the sponsors’ kind offer or indeed that their winners’ medals barely merited a second glance as thoughts drifted to the far bigger prizes that lie ahead.

Nobody at Old Trafford seems sure if United are on course for a quadruple, a quintuple or a sextuple — depending on whether the Community Shield and the Club World Cup, already under lock and key, are regarded as trophies or mere baubles — but what is certain is that Sir Alex Ferguson’s players have the winning habit, lusting after silver so desperately their victory seemed inevitable as, after 120 minutes of deadlock against a spirited Tottenham Hotspur, they prepared to settle the dispute on a penalty shoot-out.

It was Anderson who inflicted the final blow, after Ben Foster had saved from Jamie O’Hara and seen David Bentley send his kick wide, but, even as Foster crowned the most satisfying day of his career by picking up the Alan Hardaker Trophy, which is awarded to the man of the match, the bigger picture was of yet another triumph of the collective will that is fuelling United’s remarkable drive for glory on every available front.

Asked for his thoughts as his players cavorted around Wembley with the trophy, Ferguson said, in killjoy fashion, that he “could have done without extra time”, with the next examination, away to Newcastle United in the Barclays Premier League. That says everything about how he views the Carling Cup — as does the fact that Edwin van der Sar, Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher and Dimitar Berbatov were not in the 18-man squad, while Wayne Rooney was not risked, having been laid low by a virus the previous day — but it says just as much about the speed with which he and his players move on from one success in anticipation for the next.

It was not quite like that when United won this competition in 2006, when a 4-0 victory over Wigan Athletic at the Millennium Stadium brought them salvation, relief and the promise of a new dawn at the end of their darkest period in recent times. On that occasion the mood was summed up by the long face of Ruud van Nistelrooy, who trudged away after being left on the bench after a spat with Ferguson. Here the most enduring memory will be of Rooney flashing that gap-toothed grin repeatedly as each of his team-mates, particularly the younger ones, such as Darron Gibson and Danny Welbeck, got their hands on the prize.

It had not been quite the afternoon of which Gibson or Welbeck had dreamt — both had left the stage long before the shoot-out having not managed to show their potential — but at least Foster, a 25-year-old making his seventh appearance for the club, provided a happy ending for United’s next generation. His save in the shoot-out, diving to his left to repel O’Hara’s well-struck shot, was a highlight, but so, too, were those he made beforehand, standing tall to deny Aaron Lennon in the 71st minute and then using his legs to stop Darren Bent’s shot late in extra time.

Tottenham competed well and had several of the game’s better performers — Ledley King and Michael Dawson solid at the back, Lennon threatening sporadically on the right and Luka Modric coming into his own when pushed into a more advanced position midway through the second half — but they could not find a way past a United defence marshalled superbly by Rio Ferdinand. On three occasions in the first half Lennon got behind Patrice Evra but every time Tottenham sent the ball into the danger area, Ferdinand or Jonny Evans, 21, got there first, ahead of Bent or Roman Pavlyuchenko.

United struggled to impose any kind of rhythm, with Carlos Tevez flattering to deceive, and, while Cristiano Ronaldo did not come close to his best form, he was their most likely source of inspiration, cutting inside a challenge and striking a left-foot shot against the post during stoppage time at the end of the second half. He was also involved in the game’s biggest controversy, unfairly shown a yellow card for an alleged dive when he had been fouled by King in the area. Given that it came moments after John O’Shea escaped a sending-off for a second crass lunge at Modric, Chris Foy, the referee, may have felt that two wrongs made a right.

Tottenham’s woes were summed up by a scarlet-faced O’Hara and a dented Bentley, but they have bigger concerns in the Barclays Premier League. So, too, do United, with Newcastle on Wednesday, Fulham in the FA Cup on Saturday and Inter Milan in the Champions League the following midweek. The Carling they can do without, but the champagne is very much on ice.

Referee C Foy Attendance 88,217