FA PREMIERSHIP - Manchester United ... 3 Fulham ... 0: Apparently, David Beckham doesn't like pasta for breakfast. Alex Ferguson is fed up getting under his wife's feet on a Saturday afternoon. And much of the Old Trafford crowd - who held up thousands of cardboard number threes at kick-off to indicate the time they reckon football matches ought to start - require a bit more time than allowed by these early beginnings to travel to their seats.
Yet Manchester United can't stop winning 12.30 kick-offs. They are fast becoming, one tabloid reporter suggested, "legends in their own lunchtime". And, in the psychological gamesmanship of which their manager is so fond, three points posted before any of their rivals have even applied the liniment is not a bad way to start the weekend.
Indeed, on this occasion, it could be said that the United manager's working day was concluded by 11.30 a.m. That was when he wrote "Ruud van Nistelrooy" on the team sheet and handed it to the referee.
"Van Nistelrooy was the difference," said the Fulham manager, Jean Tigana, after the match. Which, as a summary of what had just happened, was as good as any.
Fulham - precisely the sort of open, honest team a manager in need of victories is thrilled to face - matched United almost everywhere.
In Zat Knight they had a defender whose leggy interventions were much more assured than those of United's considerably more expensive Rio Ferdinand. In Sylvain Legwinski and Steed Malbranque they had a midfield of guile and adventure. What they lacked was a centre forward like Van Nistelrooy.
Ferguson's team generally performed fitfully, their sleek, slick moves breaking down on the fourth or fifth pass. Beckham, whose Princess Diana complex now extends to wearing a bob modelled on Di circa 1986, was particularly sporadic. Van Nistelrooy, though, transformed it all.
"We were surprised last year with what we got," said Ferguson, recalling the knee problem that almost scuppered the player's career. "But he's getting better. A lot of his play is an improvement on last year."
The Dutchman offered up the full range in a hat-trick that took him to 15 Premiership goals this season and 32 in all competitions. He now has 68 strikes in 87 starts for United: the kind of stats that make £19million look a steal.
Van Nistelrooy's Saturday morning job began with a penalty in the 45th minute, earned when Ole Gunnar Solskjaer followed the Ruud route and flopped ostentatiously under Martin Djetou's ill-judged arm-lock.
It ended on 90 minutes with a three-yard sidefoot-in off John Harley's heel, a snappy piece of poaching following forensic dissection of the Fulham defence by Paul Scholes and Ryan Giggs.
In between was a beauty, the sort of goal it would be worth turning up at 3 a.m. to witness. Receiving the ball in the centre circle in the 68th minute, he breezed away from Legwinski and headed at a speed clearly Fulham did not realise he possessed directly for goal. Outpacing Djetou, then side-stepping Andy Melville, he tucked the ball past a leaden-footed Maik Taylor.
Tigana felt that the United man had gained the early advantage in his run by elbowing Legwinski, and that the Fulham defence had stopped, anticipating the whistle.
"My player has a big eye," said Tigana before adding, with the generosity typical of someone who relishes quality: "But I am not very angry or complaining. It is over and it was a good goal."
Like all goalscorers in form, Van Nistelrooy would have cared little for Legwinski's oversized optical problems, just as he cared little for team-mates in better scoring positions than him.
Five minutes after his wonder strike, still ravenous for goals, he tried again, and headed off on a similarly singular run, ignoring Beckham in space to his right squealing for the ball so excitedly that he must have endangered half the dogs in Manchester. This time the shot was too close to Taylor.
In the crowd, nobody seemed to mind such greed. At the final whistle they waved their protest threes in celebration, to mark three goals and three more points. If they could be guaranteed three wins in United's next three games (against Liverpool, Newcastle and Arsenal) none of them will care what time they have to get there.
MAN UTD: Barthez, Gary Neville, Ferdinand, Brown, O'Shea,Beckham, Butt, Scholes, Giggs, Solskjaer, van Nistelrooy. Subs Not Used: Blanc, Ricardo, Forlan, Fortune, Fletcher. Booked: Gary Neville, Ferdinand. Goals: van Nistelrooy 45 pen, 68, 90.
FULHAM: Taylor, Ouaddou, Knight, Melville, Harley, Malbranque, Legwinski, Boa Morte, Djetou, Saha, Marlet. Subs Not Used: Herrera, Inamoto, Clark, Sava, Wome. Booked: Melville.
Referee: S Bennett (Kent).
Guardian Service
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