United sound warning to rivals

Manchester United 4 Bolton 0

Ryan Giggs scored a double, Ruud van Nistelrooy missed a penalty and broke two records.

But the star of the show for Manchester United this afternoon was an 18-year-old by the name of Cristiano Ronaldo.

At £12.24m, the Portuguese wonderboy has not come cheap. But his electrifying 30-minute Old Trafford cameo left Bolton breathless and will be greeted with dismay by all United’s championship rivals, including big-spending Chelsea.

Not since Giggs himself burst onto the scene have United had someone so capable of leaving defenders for dead. And unlike his new team-mate, Ronaldo also seems to have perfected the art of the final pass.

It was more than enough to rattle a Bolton side, who were trailing to an impudent Giggs free-kick, when he arrived and by the time the game finished, they must have been glad to be on the end of only a four-goal beating.

Ferguson may have been ushering in a new Beckham-less era but his starting line-up looked pretty familiar, with American goalkeeper Tim Howard the only man in the 11 not part of the trophy celebrations at Goodison Park in May.

The decision not even to hand Fabien Barthez a place on the bench looks pretty terminal for the Frenchman’s Red Devils career and Howard justified the faith of his manager by athletically turning over Kevin Nolan’s 10-yard chip.

Nolan scored the match-winner in the corresponding fixture last term, following up Bolton’s success of a year earlier, which left them on the brink of becoming the first side in 32 years to complete an Old Trafford hat-trick.

It was not quite as simple as just going out and doing it though, even if Sam Allardyce’s side approached their task with enthusiasm.

In Jay Jay Okocha and Ivan Campo they had two of the better players on the pitch and they matched United attack for attack even if they could not reproduce some of the incisiveness.

For once, van Nistelrooy was well shackled, which left the trio of Giggs, Paul Scholes and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer to offer the threat.

In advanced roles ahead of Roy Keane and Nicky Butt, all three managed it at various stages, with Solskjaer going close to breaking the deadlock, albeit with the aid of a cross which flicked off Ricardo Gardner and forced Jussi Jaaskelainen into an acrobatic one-handed save.

The giant Finn had little chance with Giggs’ free-kick though, which crashed into the net off his left-hand post, a slice of misfortune the Trotters had not deserved given their impressive first-half showing.

It took a couple of timely Phil Neville interventions, the second a superb last-ditch tackle on the excellent Campo, to preserve United’s lead at the interval and Bolton started the second period in lively fashion as well.

Nolan was pushing forward at every opportunity and sent one rasping shot wide, then Mikael Silvestre was forced to intervene as Henrik Pedersen threatened to reach a cross from the young midfielder which deflected up off Quinton Fortune.

The arrivals of Youri Djorkaeff, resplendent in a Phantom of the Opera face mask to protect his broken cheekbone, and Ronaldo followed shortly afterwards, although the youngster was greeted with a neat sliding tackle from fellow teenager Andy Hunt which sent him sprawling without the ball as his first touch proved to be a brief one.

If the visitors thought it was a sign of things to come, they were sadly mistaken as the Portuguese youngster started to rip them apart.

His blinding pace and balance had already panicked Hunt once when he tried to latch onto Keane’s through-ball and fearing the worst Nolan hauled him back.

The penalty award was automatic, with van Nistelrooy taking it a goal should have been, only for the prolific Dutchman to miss again, just as he did in the Community Shield shoot-out last week, this time Jaaskelainen producing the flying save.

It was a brief reprieve, the Bolton defence had been unhinged by Ronaldo’s arrival and they were still furiously backtracking when the youngster delivered a far-post cross which Scholes eventually turned back into the six-yard box.

Van Nistelrooy got a touch which Jaaskelainen could not hold, allowing Giggs the easiest of finishes.

Scholes controversially broke the Bolton offside trap and rounded Jaaskelainen to tap home the third, before van Nistelrooy thundered home another three minutes from time.

It took his Premier League scoring run to nine and his United mark to 11, both new records, but as the final whistle sounded, the only name on home supporters’ lips was a familiar one. ‘There’s more than one Ronaldo.’