Manchester Utd 3 Newcastle Utd 0: AS OPENING games go, Manchester United can reflect on an evening of rich satisfaction, even if there were only sporadic glimpses of the wow factor with which Chelsea almost contemptuously swatted aside West Bromwich Albion on Saturday.
Alex Ferguson’s team were short of their marauding best but, after a hesitant start, a familiar air of inevitability had descended over Old Trafford once Dimitar Berbatov and Darren Fletcher had scored in the space of eight minutes at the end of the first half.
The Premier League can be an unforgiving place and, for Newcastle, their first game back in England’s top division could easily have become an ordeal if their opponents had turned their superiority in the second half into the hard currency of more goals.
As it was, the deposed champions lacked their usual penetration, with Wayne Rooney withdrawn after 63 minutes, but this felt like a routine victory once Newcastle lost their early impetus and Ryan Giggs’s lovely volley after 85 minutes was a fitting reward for their dominance against a side that have not won a league game on this ground since 1972.
Newcastle, in fairness, are not the only side to have an abysmal record on this ground and they had actually acquitted themselves well before Berbatov opened the scoring. Chris Hughton’s players were quick to the ball, strong in the challenge and, throughout the early exchanges, they played with a sense of authority and the kind of togetherness and confidence that was absent in the extreme when we last saw them in the Premier League.
The onslaught that might have been anticipated in that period never materialised and Newcastle will also reflect on an early miss from Andy Carroll, heading Joey Barton’s corner from inside the six-yard area, and wonder whether it might have been an entirely different story had their leading striker not been so wasteful.
But then, on 33 minutes, they learned a harsh lesson about how making mistakes at this level tends to be punished with far greater frequency than the division from which they have just emerged.
Jonas Gutierrez was the guilty man, losing the ball as he ran through midfield and, from a position where Newcastle were looking to counterattack, the team in black and white were suddenly vulnerable, with too many players caught out of position.
John O’Shea played the ball into Paul Scholes and, perceptive as ever, his was the killer pass to send Berbatov running into the right-hand side of the penalty area. The Bulgarian struck a diagonal shot with power and precision, picking out the bottom right-hand corner of Steve Harper’s net.
Newcastle were never to recover from this moment, even if the second goal eight minutes later flattered Ferguson’s men given the way they had toiled for much of the first half. This time Nani ran at James Perch, Newcastle’s new right-back, before slipping the ball inside his opponent for Patrice Evra to drive a low centre across the penalty area. Rooney got the first touch but had his back to goal and was not in a position to shoot, but the ball fell for Darren Fletcher to swivel inside the six-yard area and turn his shot past Harper, with the nearest defender, Fabricio Coloccini, making only a tame attempt to block the danger.
Fletcher’s strike gave the home side breathing space and Newcastle seldom looked capable of salvaging anything after the interval. Instead, United kept pressing and, with Newcastle tiring, Scholes clipped a ball into Giggs’s path for the substitute to lash the ball past Harper and in off the post.
GuardianService
MANCHESTER UTD: Van der Sar, O'Shea, Vidic, Jonathan Evans, Evra (Rafael Da Silva 87), Valencia, Fletcher, Scholes, Nani (Giggs 71), Berbatov, Rooney (Hernandez 63). Subs not used: Kuszczak, Smalling, Carrick, Macheda. Booked: Scholes, Fletcher.
NEWCASTLE UTD: Harper, Perch, Coloccini, Williamson, Jose Enrique, Routledge, Smith, Nolan (Ameobi 71), Barton, Gutierrez (Xisco 80), Carroll. Subs not used: Krul, Ryan Taylor, Vuckic, Ranger, Tavernier. Booked: Barton, Perch. Att: 75,221.
Referee: Chris Foy (Merseyside).
