Soccer / Leicester City 1 Manchester United 4: At the end of the match, the centre back ran up to Ruud van Nistelrooy and thrust an arm at him.

Then they shook each other warmly by the hand. From dirty tricks to hat-tricks in seven days: what a difference a week makes.

Having left last Sunday's encounter with Arsenal with little more than a few bruises and a sore head, van Nistelrooy ended this game clutching the match ball, and if any sound was ringing in his ears, it was not abuse but applause.

"I've never been wound up by him," said Frank Sinclair, of the post-match handshake. "I've played against him three or four times and I think he's a gentleman."

Alex Ferguson refused to accept it had been a difficult week for his Dutch striker, and it certainly ended in carefree fashion. He would have had more than his three goals but for a pair of misses that might have destroyed a lesser player. Instead they are forgotten, though last week's problems might linger for a while yet.

"He showed what he's really good at today but I think he did that last week as well," said Sinclair. "I watched the \ game and I didn't see him do a lot wrong, to be honest. From what I saw of it - even though it's got nothing to do with me - he looked like the victim in the major thing that happened."

On this occasion the identity of the victims could not be in doubt. Leicester were beaten in a single first-half minute and the rest of the match passed in a good-natured blur; it was the second Premiership game this season not to feature a booking, the Foxes also having played in the other. However reprehensible it may have been, they might have learned something from Martin Keown's behaviour the previous week.

"At the end of the day players get paid to stop people scoring goals and some people do that whatever way they can," said Sinclair. "Obviously we've not done it really well today because he's got three. We're disappointed with that. I tried to play him as well as I could but as a team they were too good for us."

United were certainly impressive, particularly with their movement in attack. "They caused us problems by moving all over the place," said the former United full-back John Curtis. "I was marking Giggsy a lot of the time and then van Nistelrooy would come out and maybe Scholesy."

After an absence through injury of a month, Scholes was immediately effective. It was his pass that put Roy Keane through to score the first, and his low shot that van Nistelrooy intercepted to score the second.

"He gives us a different dimension," said Giggs. "He's so confident on the ball; he can flick balls over the top and, when he's on the ball, you can make the kind of runs you might not ordinarily make."

The last two goals were all about van Nistelrooy, the manner in which he pulled down Rio Ferdinand's through ball to score his second rendering pointless any complaint about his occasional habit of miscontrolling crosses when he might tap them into empty nets. But United have lessons to digest from uncomfortable periods at either end of the game. In defence they were always unsure, with Quinton Fortune an unimpressive full back and John O'Shea disappointing in the centre.

Leicester were not the team to profit. Paul Dickov, a solitary striker for most of the match, worked hard but is no lone frontman, a pest but not a problem. Marcus Bent hit the bar, and Sinclair scored when unmarked from Muzzy Izzet's corner some time after United had ceased trying.

"It was a bit late in the day," said Sinclair. "But we've got to pick ourselves up because we've got Fulham on Saturday. We can take beatings off the Uniteds, the Chelseas and that but the teams that are going to be around us are the ones we've got to get points off." Leicester will have to improve at both ends of the pitch if they are to succeed but they have a week in which to do it - and sometimes that can be time enough.