Match Report (CL): United 4 - 0 Kiev
Goals: Pique; Tevez; Rooney; Ronaldo
Guardian: Manchester United have gone through Group F like a team in a hurry and on this form they will be in a rush, too, to begin the next phase of the competition.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s team look like a side who mean business and their immaculate record in this season’s competition was never going to be endangered by opponents with Dynamo Kiev’s limitations.
United’s domination was such that Wayne Rooney, now with nine goals in his last nine games, complained that he had been “bored” with winning so easily. “It was like a training session,” he said. “They had no enthusiasm to play the game and I didn’t really enjoy it.”
Ferguson will never find tedium in the routine of 4-0 victories. This was the fifth time in the past six matches United had scored four goals and the feat was made even more impressive last night given that it was an experimental side, incorporating two 20-year-old reserves in defence.
One of them, Gerard Piqué, can reflect on a particularly satisfying evening’s work, setting United on the way with his first goal for the club. Carlos Tevez doubled the lead before half-time before Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo added the final flourish on an evening of such superiority that Ferguson could afford to rest, among others, Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs and Owen Hargreaves.
In total there were five changes from the side that locked horns with Arsenal at the weekend but, as gambles go, Ferguson’s selection made perfect sense given that Blackburn Rovers, one of the Premier League’s in-form sides, will form the opposition at Old Trafford on Sunday. Kiev had not won a point in their preceding three group games and to trace their last victory in the Champions League one has to go back to November 2004 or, outside their country, to March 2000.
It said a lot about them that the Ukrainian players were taking souvenir snaps of one another before kick-off. There are not many duff teams in this competition but Kiev’s record is so poor that the club badge could be a wooden spoon and the only surprise when United took the lead was that it was their first serious attempt at goal and it had taken half an hour to come.
Piqué, who spent last season on loan at Real Zaragoza and impressed the Spanish club so much that they offered £7m to sign him on a long-term basis, was making his first start in the Champions League and it will matter little to the former Barcelona youth player that his goal could have been ruled out for an earlier offside. Ronaldo had whipped in a free-kick and Michael Carrick’s glancing header had ricocheted off Tevez to the far post, where Piqué was first to react.
Until that point United’s performance had been, at best, six out of 10 but Kiev obligingly capitulated and six minutes later Ferguson could relax. This time Tevez won the ball in the centre circle and set off towards goal, running at the heart of the Ukraine defence. A swift exchange of passes with Rooney was followed by a shot which was too powerful for a poor goalkeeper, Olexandr Shovkovskiy, even though he got his fingertips to the ball.
The result was such a formality now that Ferguson brought on his substitute goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak at half-time and Edwin van der Sar, 11 years older than any of his team-mates, passed the captain’s armband to Nemanja Vidic. The Serbian centre-half, an outstanding candidate for the job on a full-time basis, wore the yellow piece of cloth like a fashion statement and it later emerged that he was close to finalising the details of a new contract that will double his current salary.
Kuszczak was at least required to do something that had not been required of Van der Sar: to make a save. Yet there was never any hint of a comeback and there were half a dozen opportunities for United to make it 3-0 before Rooney swept in the third from Nani’s right-wing delivery.
Tevez had made way for Louis Saha by that point and the Frenchman seemed eager to impress against a tiring defence. Kiev were looking as ragged as Besiktas at Anfield the night before and, a minute from the end, Ronaldo picked up the ball on the left wing, cut infield and lashed in a diagonal shot to conclude the scoring.
TEAM
Edwin Van der Sar (Tomasz Kuszczak), Patrice Evra, Gerard Pique (Jonny Evans), Danny Simpson, Nemanja Vidic, Michael Carrick, Darren Fletcher, Luis Carlos Nani, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez (Louis Saha)
…
Sir Alex Ferguson picked out his front players for special acclaim after watching his free-scoring Manchester United side confirm their place in the Champions League knockout rounds.
A 4-0 victory over Dynamo Kiev means United have scored 22 goals in their past six games and Ferguson, making no attempt to conceal his excitement about the attacking triumvirate of Wayne Rooney, Carlos Tevez and Cristiano Ronaldo, believes his team are capable of going all the way in this season’s competition.
“The great thing about this team is that they are always capable of creating chances, either through individual ability or good combination play,” he said. “There is never a moment in any game when you feel that we have reached a dead end in terms of imagination and creativity. We have so many players capable of a moment of brilliance. It doesn’t matter whether the opposition is playing three at the back or 20 at the back.”
Ferguson was delighted to qualify with two games to spare - an achievement secured by Roma’s late equaliser to deny Sporting victory in Lisbon - and he challenged his players to win the group so that, in theory, they would be drawn against easier opponents in the first knockout phase. “We have to try to make sure of that,” he said. “We experimented last season and nearly got embarrassed but we won’t do that again. If we win against Sporting Lisbon in our next game, that will do it.”
The United manager said he understood what Rooney had meant when the forward complained of feeling “bored” during the match. “Sometimes, when the other team is organised in defence and you are playing in a position of comfort, having almost qualified already, it can be difficult, and quite tedious, trying to break them down. Kiev came with a plan to make sure they weren’t embarrassed. They played with three centre-backs and for the first 20 minutes we didn’t make any openings, even though we were passing the ball quite quickly.
“It took us time to open them up and we needed the break of the opening goal. After that I felt much more comfortable. The second goal was a great piece of skill from Tevez and in the second half we could have scored even more goals. We created some good chances and I’m happy because 4-0 is a very good score.”
