Manchester Utd - 2 Blackburn Rovers - 1 Manchester United's status means they are the only club in the country seen as fair game for criticism even if they have won. When Chelsea grind out tight victories, they are hailed as New Chelsea.

When Arsenal win without reaching exhilarating heights, their resilience is lauded. But Alex Ferguson's men carry such expectations that every victory must be accomplished with panache to save them from public inquest.

By rights, this should have been a good-news story, most notable for Kleberson, the first Brazilian to be employed by England's biggest club, scoring his first Premiership goal and playing with elusive intelligence in the role usually filled by Paul Scholes.

Yet the modern game demands blame and controversy and the focus on Saturday quickly shifted towards United's shortcomings in the second half and, aided by some inflammatory post-match comments from Graeme Souness, the home side's debt to the linesman who denied Dwight Yorke a goal for offside.

The danger for Souness is that if he keeps blaming officials after every defeat he will start suffering from yapping-dog syndrome. He will become such a common irritant that everyone will ignore him.

What cannot be denied is that United were ordinary and, at times, lacklustre. The same could also be said of previous home wins against Wolves, Birmingham and Portsmouth.

And on Saturday, the inquest began with the club's captain who railed at his colleagues' lack of bite after a comfortable opening half.

"We didn't do enough in the second half," said Keane. "We sat back and Blackburn took advantage. We are disappointed with that - we probably took our foot off the gas which is unacceptable."

Asked how close United are to hitting top form, Keane added: "After that second-half performance, a long way yet."

Keane's sentiments were echoed by Alex Ferguson, who took the three points with a faintly bad grace after being disappointed by his side's nonchalance.

"In the first half we were superb," he said. "We then had some good chances to make it 3-0 and we lost a goal and were scrambling for home, which is disappointing on our part."

Yet the biggest and most blasé crowd in the country should not fret. The driven individuals under Ferguson's charge traditionally reserve their best form for the turn of the year and are nine points better off at this stage than they were last season.

It is an impressive feat, particularly because of the personnel. Few could have predicted, that of all Ferguson's summer signings, Tim Howard would be the most influential, and not many would have reckoned on Phil Neville keeping out Nicky Butt on a regular basis. Mikael Silvestre can no longer be regarded as a weak link but perhaps the biggest surprise is the emergence of Quinton Fortune as a first-team regular.

Fortune rarely makes mistakes, passes the ball well and has the vision to create openings. His clever pass released Ruud van Nistelrooy to fire the opening goal and an even more controlled ball for Kleberson was so inviting it would have been rude for the Brazilian to rebuff the gesture.

"I think the first goal was a nice one-two with good play from Ruud and Quinton Fortune but that second goal was superb," said Ferguson of Fortune's sweetly struck first-time pass that the Brazilian through.

Souness strongly criticised his players' first-half efforts and substituted Matt Jansen and Steven Reid at the interval. Most of all, though, he panned the officials for ruling out Yorke's tap-in, when Garry Flitcroft was standing in an offside position, not Yorke.

"I've seen goals like that this year, last year and every year," said Souness. "Maybe another day, another stadium, it would have gone for us. But if it had happened at the other end I'm sure it would have stood."

Somewhere in this diatribe there was a valid point about what constitutes interfering with play and what does not. Yet the fact Flitcroft was only eight yards from goal should counter any argument about him not being involved in the attack.

Souness should have been more concerned about why his team played with such little self-belief until a switch in formation at half-time that saw two substitutes introduced to midfield.

One, the 19-year-old Paul Gallagher, was particularly impressive and supplied the through ball for Brett Emerton to make it 2-1. But United have not surrendered a two-goal lead for three years and Blackburn seldom threatened to complete the comeback.