Man United 3, Celtic 0: Rampant Rooney leads the charge

GORDON STRACHAN was blown away by the exhilarating performance of Manchester United and another scintillating individual display from Wayne Rooney as Celtic crashed to a 3-0 Champions League defeat at Old Trafford last night.

The Celtic manager and former Reds player was left spellbound after seeing United’s European campaign move into overdrive at the expense of his team.

“That was one of the best performances I have come across watching European football and we have played the likes of Barcelona and Milan. It will take some team to beat them,” Strachan enthused.

Strachan was also mesmerised by the display of Rooney who is in the most prolific goalscoring run of his career.

He continued: “Rooney was unplayable. We tried everything to stop him but, when you see a player like him, you have to hold up your hands.

“He is a world-class and he has 10 international players around him.”

Sir Alex Ferguson was also ebullient about his team’s display said: “We have a terrific momentum to our play at the moment, and I am very pleased.”

Once again it was Rooney, with his seventh goal in his last nine games for club and country, who produced another masterful display with his boundless energy evident deep into stoppage time as he was still chasing lost causes, even with the game won.

Dimitar Berbatov again showed why the Reds splashed out a club record £30.75million as he scored two poacher goals, his second European double in successive matches.

There were also some sublime touches from the Bulgarian who is establishing a lethal partnership with Rooney.

“It is never an easy decision to leave a player like Carlos Tevez out of your team, but Berbatov and Rooney have shown a consistency making it hard to leave them out,” added Ferguson.

Though it ultimately proved a resounding victory, there was no inkling early on that it would be such a stroll as Celtic, despite the injury-enforced absences of strikers Georgios Samaras and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, made a bright opening in which Aiden McGeady and Gary Caldwell were denied by smart saves from Edwin van der Sar.

The breakthrough came after half an hour and there was an element of good fortune as Berbatov was possibly marginally offside when he flicked O’Shea’s deflected effort past keeper Artur Boruc from inside the six-yard box.

Television replays were unable to give a definite ruling so you had to have sympathy for referee Frank De Bleeckere who had to make a snap decision.

And Berbatov’s second goal early soon after the restart also had a suspicion of offside.

This time Cristiano Ronaldo’s free kick was beaten out by Boruc and Berbatov was lurking to slot home the rebound.

Yet, by the same token, Rooney burst clear and rounded Boruc to find the net moments later only to be flagged for offside when replays proved conclusively he was onside so these things even themselves out.

Once again Rooney had the last word as he scored another peach of a goal in the closing stages after a sweeping move which began with van der Sar rolling the ball out to Darren Fletcher.

Nani and substitute Tevez continued the build-up and Rooney created an opening for himself to score with a low shot from 22 yards.