Smith remembers times past as United run riot

As criticisms go, "too Scottish" might sound slightly unlikely coming from the mouth of Walter Smith. However, on Saturday evening the Everton manager seemed genuinely worried that the Premiership has acquired something of a tartan hue - and he was not alluding to the coincidence that he and his counterpart yesterday are Scots.

Rather it was the possible ramifications of what the game's purists refer to as the single-club domination theory. It is something he is well placed to comment on, having been a key player in the construction of the modern Rangers - a highly successful process which laid waste to the dreams and aspirations of a whole generation of Scottish football-lovers. Smith is now presumably discovering what it feels like to manage Kilmarnock.

"People used to look at Scotland and say that there was only one team in it, namely Rangers," said Smith. "That was fine, it never really bothered me. The thing is, Manchester United are now matching down here what Rangers did up there.

"It is competitive in the Premiership but at what sort of level is it competitive if one team has won the title in six out of the last eight seasons and has finished in second place on the two occasions they did not finish first?

"Arsenal managed to get up to United's level once and have maintained a challenge but it is getting very difficult to do that. There is a challenge there for us all to meet, to rise up to," he added.

Smith has led Everton back from the brink to, depending on your level of expectation, either acceptable safety or unacceptable mediocrity, but he feels that clubs such as Everton are now so far behind United that they realistically no longer share the same targets.

Unwittingly backing up Smith's theory was Alex Ferguson, who explained away the absence of Jaap Stam by saying he had simply been given the weekend off. Now that's what you call a managerial luxury.

Despite the majesty of United's first-half football, Everton were little short of a disgrace until, as Ferguson pointed out, their pride intervened, prompting them to resolve belatedly that no visiting team should be permitted to hold sway from first whistle to last.

Curiously, Ferguson insisted that after Thomas Gravesen had eaten into his side's advantage with a nicely worked goal on 54 minutes, things were "hairy" for a quarter of an hour, suggesting that the outcome was fleetingly in some doubt.

It was nonsense, of course. Ferguson was simply trying to provide a spoonful of solace for his old friend Smith.

For Smith there was little to mitigate the shabbiness and generosity of his own makeshift defence. With Richard Dunne perfecting his carthorse impression at right- back, David Weir lost without his buddy Richard Gough in the centre and Michael Hughes out of position and out of touch at left-back, United ran amok, the wonder being that they logged only three goals in an opening half when Everton's collective madness was at its most pronounced.

After Nicky Butt had sauntered through the decaying remains of the Everton rearguard to chest home an Ole Gunnar Solskjaer cross, Ryan Giggs steered home after Paul Gerrard had saved - but not held - Teddy Sheringham's drive.

Solskjaer added a third shortly before the interval, climaxing a sublime move engineered by the marvellous David Beckham, but by that point United were already reducing the level of their input in readiness for tomorrow night's Champions League spat with Dynamo Kiev.

"Our first-half football was the best we have produced all season," said Ferguson. " Other teams will come here and drop points so I'm happy."

Rather happier than United's goalkeeper Fabien Barthez who, despite spending the afternoon doing nothing more taxing than pondering where his next gallon of petrol would come from, somehow managed to pull a muscle which will probably leave him inactive for 10 days.

"I'll have no problems with including Raimond van der Gouw because he doesn't let me down," said Ferguson.

As Smith hinted, the problem for everyone outside of Old Trafford is that no one ever seems to let Manchester United down.

EVERTON: Gerrard, S. Watson, Weir, Alexandersson, Nyarko, S. Hughes (Unsworth 45), Jeffers, Dunne, Gravesen, Gascoigne (Gemmill 70), M. Hughes (Campbell 69). Subs Not Used: Simonsen, Moore. Booked: Unsworth, Nyarko, Jeffers, Dunne, Gemmill. Goals: Gravesen 54.

MANCHESTER UTD: Barthez (Van Der Gouw 78), G. Neville, Irwin, Beckham, Butt, Sheringham, Giggs (Yorke 46), Scholes (P. Neville 74), Solskjaer, Brown, Silvestre. Subs Not Used: Cole, Wallwork. Booked: Scholes. Goals: Butt 27, Giggs 29, Solskjaer 38.

Attendance: 38,541.

Referee: D Gallagher (England).