Just like the 'old times'

Manchester Utd 4 Middlesbrough 1:Manchester United have reached such an exhilarating run of form that the biggest and most blase crowd in English football could even slip out of habit and celebrate a home win for Chelsea when the results flashed up on Old Trafford's scoreboard.

The cackling was predominantly schadenfreude at Manchester City's expense, but it also confirmed, post-Jose Mourinho, the supporters of Alex Ferguson's team have come to regard the deposed champions with a mixture of disdain and curiosity rather than the fear of old.

The focus at Old Trafford has shifted towards Arsenal rather than Chelsea, with Ferguson talking about a return to "old times" in the contest for supremacy at the top of the Premier League.

Ferguson's team, who welcomed back Owen Hargreaves for only his fourth game since joining the club in the summer, seem immune to insecurity and it is beginning to feel like a trick of the mind that their fans were getting agitated earlier this season about a lack of entertainment.

United have scored four goals in each of their last four games and, to put it into perspective, it is the first time they have done that since 1907.

The oddity was that Cristiano Ronaldo played only a peripheral role. The Portugal forward did not play any part in the goals but it scarcely mattered because, collectively, United were at their very best and it was one of those days when Wayne Rooney's performance could have been set to music.

The most impressive aspect was that the performance of Gareth Southgate's team was far from the worst put up by an away side at Old Trafford over the last year or so and, at times, the visitors put together some attractive football.

Special mention should be made of Lee Cattermole, who chased so hard he was grimacing with cramp in the last few minutes, but only the most accomplished team can harbour aspirations of going to Old Trafford in a 4-4-2 formation and it not becoming an ordeal.

Southgate's boldness will be applauded by purists and it was difficult not to sympathise when he explained afterwards he wanted to stick to his beliefs - namely, open and attacking football - rather than taking the popular approach of visiting managers to Old Trafford by packing midfield and deploying a lone forward.

The reality, however, was his system gave United the time and space to work their elaborate, triangular passing moves. Adventure can only be applauded when accompanied by common sense.

Rooney, in particular, made sure that was the case and, as he approaches the point of maximum expression, how preposterous it may feel over the coming months that Euro 2008 is likely to go ahead without the assassin-faced baby as one of the star turns.

His performance here combined brute force, beautiful subtlety and, above all, a desire to make things happen, the highlights being an inch-perfect 60-yard pass to Ronaldo, the backheel (with his left foot) that set up Carlos Tevez to make it 3-1, and the bull run from inside his own half before the Argentinian finished the scoring with a shot that deflected off Andrew Taylor and looped into the net.

Rooney scored his eighth goal in his last seven games, lashing his shot beyond Mark Schwarzer after a ghastly mistake by Stewart Downing, and it speaks volumes for the England forward that his performance should be the main talking point when Nani, with a swivel of the hips and a rasping 30-yard drive, had bewitched Old Trafford with the stunning quality of his opening goal.

After a winding run beyond Gary O'Neil, Luke Young and Cattermole, his goal will rank among the finest witnessed in this stadium in the Ferguson era.

Middlesbrough equalised when Jeremie Aliadiere headed Tuncay Sanli's cross in off the post, and they would have taken the lead had Downing not placed an unchallenged header narrowly wide midway through the first half. Trying to outpass United, however, is a hazardous business.

Ferguson's team will head to Arsenal on the back of eight successive league wins and, on that kind of form, they can afford to be happy about Chelsea putting six past Manchester City.