United Smashes 5 Past Sorry Pompey

Manchester United 5 - Portsmouth 0
Scorers
Manchester United: Rooney (40), Vanden Borre (45 og), Hughes (59 og), Berbatov (62), Wilson (69 og)

Team: Van der Sar, Brown, Evans, Neville, Evra, Fletcher (Gibson 67), Carrick, Valencia, Nani, Rooney (Diouf 67), Berbatov (Owen 67)

Wasn't as awesome as some of our performances in the past few weeks, but Pompey were so poor we hardly moved out of second gear to get 5 goals.

Portsmouth are destined to get relegated this season. I can't see any way this team can compete for the rest of the season with the way the squad is constituted. Injuries, keys players sold and off the pitch turmoil has robbed the players of whatever fighting spirit. And today it showed. The Pompey players were simply going thru the motions and no one was fighting for the ball. It was a token effort by players who know that their premiership days are numbered. I really pity the fans of this great football club. They deserve better.

Today's headlines once again fall on the man of the moment, Wayne Rooney. Before kickoff, he collected his Player of the Month award, and 40 minutes into the game, showed why he deserved the accolade. He headed Fletcher's cross past James and gave us the lead.

The other man of the moment contributed heavily for the second goal. Nani, starting on the left wing, dribbled past his man and into the box before attempting to cross the ball into the centre. His attempt was heavily deflected and wrong-footed David James into the net.

We enjoyed a hardly deserved 2 goal cushion going into the half. Had things been a little different, Pompey would have had a goal lead instead. Just before Rooney's goal, Belhadji had an effort saved off the line by the outstanding Evans.

The second half was all United. Both Valencia and Nani wasted good chances, but Carrick made most use of his chance with another heavily deflected goal. I'm still a little surprised that it's officially an own goal. I thought Carrick's rasping shot was already goal bound before the deflection, but TPTB decided otherwise.

Berbatov got on the act with a superb effort after the Pompey defense went literally to sleep. And Marc Wilson scored Pompey's third own goal of the night and United fifth, deflecting Evra's cross into the net as James stared in disbelief.

It probably could have gotten much worst for Pompey with plenty of time on the clock but United were conserving energy and bodies. Diouf, who came on as a sub, nearly added a sixth but scooped his effort over James.

As I mentioned, it wasn't an outstanding performance, but by all accounts an outstanding result. And one which signalled to the entire Premier League that we are back to our best, or at the very least very close to it. With the 5-0 drubbing, we also climbed up to the summit of the Premier League further throwing the gauntlet down to our challengers.

I'm seriously preparing myself to eat some major crow come May. If we keep this level of concentration and intensity, there is a very good chance we'd come away with the title and the record of winning 4 in a row.