‘Premiership football does little to give anyone a sense of perspective, but the sight of Manchester United players expressing their condolences to Lomana LuaLua on Saturday restored faith in the communal spirit of the national game.
It was remarkable enough to see LuaLua playing again just days after learning of the death of his 18-month old son, but his heroic efforts to mark the occasion with a goal earned tributes from all involved.
LuaLua was representing
"There was only one man of the match for me, and that was LuaLua," said United captain Ruud van Nistelrooy. "I have never seen anything like it. He was a constant threat to our defence, and kept going for 90 minutes.
"I went over to him after the game and said, 'I wish you all the strength you need in this difficult time. How you pulled off a performance like that I just don't know'."
For the second weekend running Cristiano Ronaldo, scored twice.
Blessed with an even greater capacity than LuaLua to excite and enrage, he struck a violent dipping shot from 25 yards that beat Dean Kiely for pace, then rounded off a slick move involving Van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney.
Ryan Giggs rolled back the years with a scintillating burst to create the opener for the excellent Van Nistelrooy. Rooney was subdued until throwing his shin-guards to the floor after being substituted late on.
At half-time, Sir Alex Ferguson must have been asking himself why his pedigree performers had not given United the season's points total to capitalise on
By full-time, his team had slipped down a gear or two to remind him. To see Giggs starting at the heart of the midfield was an interesting enough experiment, but then so has been the deployment of Alan Smith, John O'Shea, Rio Ferdinand and Rooney in the central void. United are still fine-tuning.’