PRESS BOX VIEW – GUARDIAN

From The Guardian:

‘A record attendance for a Premiership game made this a gross invasion of privacy. Birmingham City surely want to be left in peace to scrape together whatever confidence and organisation is still possible after a 7-0 defeat by Liverpool in an FA Cup tie. The visitors, however, did ensure that the 69,070 crowd accommodated after the partial opening of the new NW quadrant could not cackle over a rout.

Proficiency would have appealed to the home support, all the same, and Manchester United have now won nine consecutive home matches in all competitions. Such statistics will never be awe- inspiring at this club but it will stand the team in good stead if the habit of consistency is becoming ingrained. In truth, they were not all that far away from running amok in this game either.

Had Wayne Rooney mustered a pair of finishes to take a couple of easy chances United would have been 4-0 ahead by the interval.

Even so, the prodigy could not overshadow the man who once held that position at the club. Rooney, indeed, ought to marvel at Ryan Giggs and wonder if he will be able to perform to such a standard when he hits the unimaginable age of 32. The Welshman, who scored the second, reckons that it is 10 years since he was able to show the incandescent pace that made him famous, but Birmingham still could not shackle him.

There must be certain misgivings about the reinvention of Giggs as a central midfielder, since he could not function there in an attritional contest such as the FA Cup defeat at Liverpool, but in the correct circumstances he will thrive as a playmaker. This game looked as if it had been designed to his specifications.'