ENGLISH PREMIER LEAGUE:  IT IS not the easiest thing to feel sorry for a 23-year-old footballer who can walk away from a wrecked Ferrari without a backward glance or even a slight ache in the wallet, but Cristiano Ronaldo deserved a measure of sympathy last night as, having played his part in a fine victory for Manchester United, he was deprived of two goals to add to the three scored by his team-mates.

Ronaldo will travel to Zurich tonight expecting to pick up Fifa's world player of the year award, a reward for his belief that football should be a matter of skill and spontaneity. Last night, watched by a crowd including Fabio Capello and Jose Mourinho, the winger irradiated a vital match with a spirit of invention that would have done credit to any of football's famous free spirits.

Leaving blue-shirted defenders lying in the gutter like so many smashed-up supercars, he carried a constant promise of danger and had a hand in Manchester United's second and third goals, scored by Wayne Rooney and Dimitar Berbatov.

The two disallowed efforts, however, provided equally vivid memories.

The first came a minute into first-half stoppage time when Rooney and Ryan Giggs played a wonderful trick on their opponents. United had won a right-wing corner and Rooney dribbled the dead ball gently towards the corner flag. He stopped it in the quadrant, as the laws require, and then dragged it back no more than 18 inches with the sole of his boot before strolling away, as if to leave it for Ryan Giggs, the normal taker of such kicks.

The Welsh veteran walked up to the ball, turned towards the goal and suddenly set off on a short dribble before hitting a cross which Ronaldo raced to meet at the near post with a powerful header that arrowed past the dumbfounded Petr Cech.

Unfortunately the linesman was not thinking at the same speed as the United players and the goal was disallowed, against the vehement protests of those who had engineered such a marvellous piece of training-ground trickery.

It was the most impudent dead-ball routine since Willie Carr of Coventry flicked a free-kick up with the ball between his heels for Ernie Hunt to volley home against Everton almost 40 years ago.

Ronaldo was denied again towards the end of the second half, when Berbatov met Rooney's astute flick from the right and steered the ball into his Portuguese team-mate's path. Level with the last defender when the pass was played, Ronaldo beat the goalkeeper from close range with the perfect one-on-one finish, only to fall victim once again to a linesman whose perception, as the replay showed, was not the equal of the players' execution of a sumptuous move.

He had plenty with which to console himself. His evening started with a kick on his shins from Frank Lampard in the third minute, bringing a booking for the Chelsea man as well as giving a broad hint of the uncompromising nature of the visitors' challenge.

But the backheels, the stutter-step dribbles and the weirdly swerving free-kicks took a while to ignite, and he earned a yellow card when he and compatriot Ricardo Carvalho wrestled each other to the ground on the half-hour.

Once United had scored from the retaken corner on the brink of half-time, however, Ronaldo's contribution came into focus. Now facing a visiting midfield reduced in numbers by the withdrawal of Deco, he exploited the additional space to devastating effect, moving across to the left flank and torturing Jose Bosingwa, another fellow Portuguese, while demonstrating his gift for delivering lethal crosses without the split-second pause that mere mortals need to gather and steady themselves before striking the ball.

It was with a backheel like a switchblade thrust in a dark alley that he took Bosingwa out of the game and invited the enterprising Patrice Evra to deliver the cross from which Rooney stabbed home United's second goal.

And three minutes from time, having been brought down by Bosingwa's replacement, Juliano Belletti, on the left of the Chelsea penalty area, Ronaldo got up to drive in a low free-kick which the sprinting Berbatov met with a firm shot to complete the scoreline.

Ronaldo was not alone, however, in his excellence and his influence. During a first half of unremitting effort but not much coherence from either side, the 33-year-old Giggs put on a command performance in central midfield.

Twice the great man drove into the heart of Chelsea's defence, injecting pace and dynamism to lift United's spirits and standards.

At the other end of the age spectrum, the tall and slender central defender Jonny Evans, who turned 21 last week, performed alongside Vidic with a composure and a lucidity that would have done credit to the absent Rio Ferdinand.

For these and other reasons Alex Ferguson could leave the ground wearing his biggest smile of the season. The chase is on.