PRESS BOX VIEW – TIMES

‘In the circumstances, they might have been advised to keep things tighter, especially in the early stages, and to unsettle their opponents by doing unto United what they have done themselves when confronted by technically superior Arsenal and Chelsea teams. Instead, Portsmouth played too open a game and left too much space between the back four and the midfield, into which Ryan Giggs, Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney gratefully poured.

After 18 minutes, Giggs’s run and shot against the bar allowed Van Nistelrooy to nod in United’s first and the ball dropped into the same gap in front of the Portsmouth defence 20 minutes later for Ronaldo to hit a vicious second. The game was effectively over at that point, but Ronaldo’s second goal, a low shot deflected past Dean Kiely by Andy O’Brien, made sure.

Giggs and Van Nistelrooy apart, United had barely broken sweat in the first half and they were even less energetic in the second. That and Redknapp’s plea to his players to “give it a go” enabled Portsmouth belatedly to summon up some of the spirit that was a given during home games in Redknapp’s first spell as manager, but Matt Taylor’s header with three minutes left came far too late to spur a comeback.’