Man Utd took apart Newcastle in their opener, 3-0 as Paul Scholes proved why Fabio Capello might jettison his newly found “young blood ” mantra to persuade the former England international to come back from retirement.
Scholes picked out Ryan Giggs with a perfect pass and the career Manchester Utd man finished perfectly for United’s third goal.
Scholes also provided Dimitar Barbatov with an assist for the first goal (video) and then a very gracious Rooney gave up to Darren Fletcher to score the second after Evra had crossed the ball to the England striker (video).
Rooney was taken off in the 63rd minute and was at hand to watch Giggs score. It’s been a tough last few months for him but the encouraging signs are that Dimitar Berbatov and Chicharito Hernandez look quite capable of taking up the scoring slack. Especially the Bulgarian whose talent has never been doubt but his endeavour has been frequently found wanting.
Similar to newly promoted West Brom facing Chelsea, this too was quite the initiation for Newcastle. The third club fared better as Blackpool overcame Wigan in an impressive 4-0 win.