12th September vs Tottenham (a). 3-1.

Finally, after a typically slow start to the Premiership season - where, as usual, average performances have been adequate (results wise) yet utterly unimpressive - we pulled together a performance worthy of the Championship crown that has been resting firmly on the red devil's head.

Our recent performances up until now however, especially with the teams in front - Chelsea and (worryingly?) City - winning casually, have given our critics and haters alike apparent reason to believe it will NOT be 4 in a row...and that selling Ronaldo was the most expensive, flawed gamble of all time.

Although we got a win against one of the league's best in the previous game, it was in no way a performance to comfortably convince the fans that we have the ability to retain the trophy without Ronaldo. On paper, and obviously historically, Arsenal are a bigger/better team than their North London neighbours, yet based on this seasons form alone, the trip to White Hart Lane seemed easily as daunting as the arrival of the Gooners 2 weeks previously.

Tottenham had yet to drop a point this season, with their strikers (namely Defoe) looking too cool for school; so the odds on them collecting all the points on Saturday - seeing as we have yet to hit true form and have dropped some embarassing points already - would surely have seemed a fair possiblity rather than an upset.
However, cometh the occasion, cometh the convincing...scrap that...awesome performance to prove that there is well and truly life and desire in this proud team of ours.

On the day we showed the world that there is life after Ronaldo, and that Spurs, sorry to say (actually, not that sorry really), are still the short-sided pretenders; years off the 'Big Four' mark. United, however, after finding ourselves shockingly behind after 50 seconds, as The Sunday Mirror put it, "...responded with the authority and bloody mindendness of serial champions".

In a way it was very similar to the situation at Old Trafford last season where Spurs were 2-0 up at the break after a brilliant first half performance, yet instead of capitalising further after half-time to cap an epic victory, we beat them 5-2 with one of the greatest second half displays I've ever seen. Here, instead of building on the first minute goal, their temporary superiority encouraged our game and triggered our response system into waking up and playing proper, solid football. Thanks Tottenham!

The enjoyable forgetting of Ronaldo started on the 25th minute, when Giggs rolled back the years and stroked the ball beautifully into the top left corner from his free-kick. It's difficult to remember that before Ron and ofcourse Beckham (going back about 15 years now!) Giggs used to bang these in for fun, and there's no reason he can't keep on going; telling Match of The Day that he still stays behind after training to practise them.

Then, as if Giggs scoring for the 18th Premiership season in a row wasn't good enough, we witnessed the unimaginable...Anderson getting a goal!!

With Rooney's solo effort wrapping up a scintillating and thoroughly encouraging performance, we are left to properly look forward to the season ahead; one deemed to be full of scepticism, frustration and dissapointment after a summer of change. However, with a solid passing display all game, Rooney's 5th in 5 - and Anderson's 1st in about 80 - we look truly recovered and raring to go after the hangover that was brought about from the most pivitol departure ever.

Ratings:

Foster 6; O’Shea 6, Ferdinand 7, Vidic 8, Evra 8; Fletcher 7, Scholes 6, Anderson 6, Giggs 8; Berbatov 6, Rooney 7