Manchester Utd 4 West Bromwich 0:IF THERE was one passage of play which encapsulated Manchester United's enduring brilliance, it arrived when there were already early leavers filing towards the stadium exits and you could hear the dull, thudding clank of seats being emptied.
The score was 3-0, the game was won and, with a Champions League tie to follow against Celtic, the most successful players in English football could have been forgiven for wanting to conserve energy. But that, of course, is not the United way.
When Ishmael Miller, possibly the fastest player in the West Bromwich squad, got away from John O'Shea and started haring towards goal, the next player on his shoulder was the oldest outfield player on the pitch, with the first flecks of grey in his hair, no reputation for tackling and enough in credit to believe he could probably get away with leaving the task to the team's defenders.
The chase began close to the halfway line and ended inside the penalty area before Ryan Giggs finally caught his opponent, 13 years his junior, and did just enough to make it comfortable for Edwin van der Sar to tip the shot over his crossbar.
"It was the 88th minute and Ryan must have sprinted 70 or 80 yards to get to our centre-forward," Jonathan Greening, the Albion midfielder who began his Premier League career at Old Trafford, marvelled. "He [Giggs] has played 700-odd games, he's in his 30s, and then you see him doing that and you know he's still doing the business."
The next time the ball dropped at Giggs's feet it was from Albion's corner and he was just outside his own penalty area. One quick glance ahead, one accomplished swish of that left boot and the ball had carried 50 yards up the pitch to Dimitar Berbatov. Two passes later and Nani had turned in Wayne Rooney's cross for the fourth goal. Giggs, 35 next month, was still in his own half when the net billowed and United's defenders converged on him.
"What a pro, what a player," said Greening. "You simply can't fault him." Greening was full of admiration for his old club and went as far as questioning whether Rooney, with eight goals in his last six games for club and country, deserves to be thought of as currently the best player in the world, given the talent on show in the rest of the team.
"I don't think it is the best he has played for us," Ferguson later argued. "I know there is this English thing about Wayne Rooney at the moment, to look upon him as the saviour of English football, but Wayne was just part of a team today. As good as he was, there were others just as good."
Ferguson's conservatism was understandable given it is only a few weeks since we were still debating what had gone wrong with Rooney. That said, this was a destructive performance from the striker, including the first goal and assists in two others. Albion coped admirably throughout the opening half, even if Rooney had a perfectly good goal disallowed for an alleged push on Gianni Zuiverloon, but the gulf in class was brutal after the interval. It culminated in United's 34th 4-0 victory under Ferguson.
The manager described it as their best display of the season and the only possible concern, apart from the hamstring injury that forced off Patrice Evra, was Ronaldo's peculiar reaction after he had placed a left-foot shot through Scott Carson's legs. Too much can be read into a goal celebration, but compare Ronaldo's glower with Rooney's double knee-slide or the sunrise of a smile that crossed Berbatov's face after he had turned in Nani's cross to make it 3-0.
Nani himself went in for a back-flip. Yet Ronaldo spent so long over the summer trying to get a move to Real Madrid there are times when he looks as if he is here against his will. And that alone will have taken the gloss off this victory for some of United's supporters.
Guardian Service
