United were effortlessly good. Those hoping to exploit the vulnerabilities caused by regime change will have to wait.
Many feel that change might be afoot in the English game – and maybe it still is. But when your starting XI includes Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs and Robin van Persie it is clear that not so much has really changed.
It was, of course, just the first three points in a long season. But it felt a whole lot more significant than that.”
“The names on the pitch are still the same, and the team are playing in the 4-2-3-1 system that Sir Alex Ferguson eventually came to favour. Giggs is still there at the age of 39 and Van Persie is still greedily accumulating goals from any distance or angle. So maybe we should not be surprised that it felt so much like business as usual. How many times, for example, have we seen this United team suddenly come into their own and ruthlessly punish the opposition as they did here with two goals in as many minutes? That was the period when the game lurched away from Swansea and, from then on, there was an air of inevitability.”