Ron’s double for Man U

MANCHESTER: Cristiano Ronaldo struck twice as Manchester United blew away their goalscoring woes with an emphatic 4-0 victory against Wigan that sent them top of the Premier League on Saturday.

Ronaldo’s double, which followed Carlos Tevez’s 54th minute opener, made the game safe for United before Wayne Rooney cemented victory with his first league goal of the season in the closing stages at Old Trafford.

United lost striker Louis Saha in the warm-up with a knee injury and the goalscoring problem that has affected them all season continued in the first-half against Chris Hutchings’s team.

Wigan hardly made things easy for United, adopting a rigid 4-5-1 formation that was wholly defensive, but the home side certainly had enough of the ball to make the visitors pay for their negative approach.

Wigan’s resilience and two early injuries, suffered by Nemanja Vidic and John O’Shea, made life difficult for United, though.

Serbian centre-half Vidic lasted just 20 minutes before walking off the pitch with concussion following two blows to the head in challenges with Marcus Bent and Paul Scharner.

Republic of Ireland international O’Shea then followed him out of the action nine minutes later with a thigh injury that makes him extremely doubtful for his country’s forthcoming Euro 2008 qualifier against Germany.

So it was a frustrating first-half for the champions after referee Mike Riley had ignored penalty appeals on five minutes following Michael Brown’s clumsy challenge on Ronaldo.

The next chance did not come until the 32nd minute and that fell to Wigan, with Australian midfielder Josip Skoko testing keeper Tomasz Kuszczak with a 30-yard strike.

Ronaldo replied with another long-range effort for United, but they did not break into the penalty area until first-half stoppage time, when Tevez shot over after being released by Ryan Giggs.

The second-half was a totally different story, though, as United finally hit the goal trail after netting just seven goals all season prior to kick-off. After Giggs had struck the bar, Tevez opened the scoring when he rounded off a slick four-man move to claim his second goal for United on 54 minutes.

Rooney’s flick from Rio Ferdinand’s pass found Anderson in midfield and the Brazilian released Tevez, but the Argentinian still did brilliantly to hold off defender Kevin Kilbane and round Titus Bramble and keeper Chris Kirkland before firing into the net from 12 yards.

The goal eased the tension and Ronaldo had doubled United’s lead within five minutes when he headed in from two yards after Kirkland had palmed away Giggs’s

deflected shot. Having failed to worry United defensively, Wigan now had a mountain to climb in order to get back into the game and end their miserable run of losing every one of their encounters with United.

But after substitute Antonio Valencia forced Tomasz Kuszczak into a fine save on 65 minutes, Hutchings’s team just couldn’t get a sight on the United goal and Ronaldo extended United’s winning margin when he claimed his third goal of the season by converting Rooney’s cross on 76 minutes.

Rooney, who netted his first goal of the season against Roma in midweek, had done everything but score, yet that was to change when he made it 4-0 on 82 minutes.

Unmarked in the penalty area, the England striker was free to head Danny Simpson’s cross past the helpless Kirkland to wrap up the victory and send United to the top of the table.