Manchester United 2 Charlton 0

IN the very week that chief executive Peter Varney called for a debate to address the increasingly predictable nature of the Barclays Premiership, Charlton maintained their losing streak at Old Trafford.

In fact they have never won away to Manchester United - and never looked capable of breaking this unhappy sequence on Saturday.

A mere three points separated the two clubs going into the game. It might just as well have been 30.

For here was a match that illustrated all you ever needed to know about the strengths, weaknesses and pitiless inequality that exists within the Premiership.

It was a game but never a contest, a match whose outcome was never in the remotest doubt.

United substitutes Christiano Ronaldo and Alan Smith, who together cost more than £20m, could stretch out in the winter sunshine and reflect there are worse ways to make their lucrative living.

They could only look on as their club-mates sauntered to victory with the ease that separates potential contenders from hopeful survivors.

Mr Varney warned that if the same clubs win all the time people switch off their televisions and refuse to pay the excessive admission charged by some clubs. He has a point, as dwindling Saturday audience figures for BBC Television's Match of the Day strongly suggest.

On the day, it was live on Sky Television as their cameras captured Charlton taking a beating that could so easily have been a battering.

United possessed far too much movement, too much technique all over the field for a Charlton side that fell miserably short of expectations built up by winning at Tottenham and the previous week's resounding success against Norwich.

Before the game, United legend Pat Crerand offered Charlton hope, suggesting that midfielder Danny Murphy was the man capable of springing a surprise. After all, with former club Liverpool he had won three times at Old Trafford while scoring the only goal on each occasion.

But poor Murphy never got into his stride and was barracked relentlessly for no other reason that he once played for Liverpool. Unfortunately, those hoots of derision appeared to impair his performance.

Charlton manager Alan Curbishley conceded: "When you come to a club that's in the top three or four, you have to work so hard to contain. The trick is how you turn that around and turn some of your possession into trying to create chances.

"That was our problem today. We worked ever so hard to contain and stop Manchester United and we didn't have too much going the other way.

"We invariably gave away possession and when we did have possession it lasted three or four passes, and that's not enough.

"Mid-table clubs like ourselves come to the big clubs and that's the pattern of play."

Two attempts on goal tells its own story of Charlton's impotence as they only roused United goalkeeper Roy Carroll in the closing stages as first Luke Young and then Hermann Hreidarsson threatened the home goal.

By then United had waltzed into a 2-0 lead with Ryan Giggs seeing his 41st minute shot deflected in off the heels of Young.

Their second in the 50th was the result of a clinical finish from Paul Scholes whose perfect right foot volley at the far post from Darren Fletcher's cross gave goalkeeper Dean Kiely no chance.

It was the former England international's first goal in 23 games for United on his 350th appearance for the club.

Wayne Rooney continued to shoot high and wide from a series of golden opportunities, while Charlton's half time loss of the injured Chris Perry compounded their misery.

The match was Curbishley's 653rd in charge. He will not care to remember it.

Charlton: Kiely; Young, El Karkouri, Perry (Fortune, 46 mins), Hreidarsson; Holland, Kishishev, Murphy, Thomas (Konchesky, 58 mins), Johnasson, Bartlett (Jeffers, 75 mins). Subs Not Used: Euell, Andersen.

Attendance: 67,704.