Manchester United could scarcely have wished for an easier afternoon before
next week's Champions' Cup showdown with Juventus.
They strolled to three points against Sheffield Wednesday at Old Trafford
without even moving out of first gear.
Wednesday were simply awful as United scored at will and if Alex Ferguson's
side had really tried they might have repeated last season's 6-1 romp.
The victory extends United's lead at the top of the Premiership to four
points, but perhaps more importantly it gave the treble-chasers the chance to
switch back to cruise control after three games against Arsenal and Juventus
played at full throttle.
Ryan Giggs, Peter Schmeichel, Ronny Johnsen and Andy Cole were given the
afternoon off, while David Beckham and Dwight Yorke put their feet up on the
bench.
They will have appreciated this breather ahead of the midweek titanic match in
Turin against Juventus.
But then the United stars who did play against the Owls hardly had to exert
themselves. Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Teddy Sheringham scored before the interval
to reduce the game to a virtual practice match for the Reds.
What little excitement there was came in the first half when, following a
minute's silence to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Hillsborough
disaster, which was impeccably observed, Ferguson took the microphone and
appealed to the United fans to get behind their team.
Ferguson has been alarmed by the lack of atmosphere at Old Trafford in recent
games and he implored them to make some noise.
The supporters answered his rallying call and for the first 30 minutes or so
they had a contest to watch.
Roy Keane tested Pavel Srnicek from 30 yards out before the lively Benito
Carbone forced a great save from Raimond van der Gouw when the Dutchman tipped
his curling effort away for a corner.
Two minutes later Carbone let rip with a dipping shot from outside the area,
which dropped behind the United goal.
Sheringham then forced a decent save from Srnicek from a free-kick 20 yards
out before he went close again with a header.
Paul Scholes, operating on the right in the absence of Beckham, was looking
threatening and he sent in a decent header, which was turned away by Srnicek for
a corner.
United patiently kept probing at the Owls defence and on 34 minutes they made
the breakthrough. Keane knocked Jesper Blomqvist's cross back for Sheringham to
find Solskjaer with an overhead kick and the Norwegian made no mistake from
eight yards out to score goal number 17 for the season.
Incredibly, that killed the game as a contest and Solskjaer nearly had a
second two minutes later only for Srnicek to save his shot on the greasy
surface.
Just before half-time United sealed victory when Solskjaer crossed for
Sheringham to head home his third goal of the season and his first in the League
since the opening day of the campaign.
Solskjaer and Sheringham's goals also justified Ferguson's decision to stick
with the pair because he claimed in his programme notes that Yorke and Cole were
experiencing a "flattening out period".
In the second half both sides went through the motions, although Wednesday
struggled to do even that. They could barely move the ball out of their own half
let alone mount a serious attack.
Such was United's control that Phil Neville even got in on the fun from left
back and he screwed a shot across the Owls goal.
Then just as many fans were nodding off, Sheringham set up Scholes to fire
home the third from just inside the area in the 62nd minute.
That was the signal for Ferguson to bring off Jaap Stam and Keane for a
well-earned rest and on came Jonathan Greening and David May, who was making his
first League appearance of the season.
With 15 minutes left, the industrious Blomqvist was also brought off to let
Denis Irwin stretch his legs. That was more or less it and the remainder of the
game was just as humiliating for Wednesday as the first part.
Teams
Man Utd: Van Der Gouw, G. Neville, Stam (May 63), Brown,
P. Neville, Butt, Scholes, Keane (Greening 63),
Blomqvist (Irwin 75), Sheringham, Solskjaer.
Subs Not Used: Yorke, Beckham.
Goals: Solskjaer 35, Sheringham 44, Scholes 62.
Sheff Wed: Srnicek, Atherton, Thome, Walker, Hinchcliffe,
Alexandersson (Scott 55), Jonk, Sonner, Rudi, Carbone, Booth (Cresswell 71).
Subs Not Used: Pressman, Briscoe, Stefanovic.
Att: 55,270
Ref: N Barry (Scunthorpe).
E-mail Article 
Print-Friendly
Subscribe to RSS Feed 
Post to del.icio.us
Facebook