THE GUARDIAN
Peter Kenyon may already be squirming uncomfortably. If hackles were raised from Highbury to Old Trafford at the Chelsea's chief executive's preposterously bold prediction that this season's title winners would come from "a small bunch of one", then Saturday brought reassurance in triplicate for Manchester United that his conviction is misguided.
A year of frustration may not have been erased by this impressive victory but already United appear a more potent prospect. Without a Glazer in sight, Sir Alex Ferguson unveiled solidity and bite at each Dutch tip of his team to eradicate some of the more obvious frailties of a trophyless term. Yet, despite the contributions of Edwin van der Sar and Ruud van Nistelrooy, it was the youthful genius most reviled in these parts who propelled United to a victorious start.
Wayne Rooney boarded the visitors' coach at the end here with three points, a goal and a broad grin to infuriate those locals who had waited on Goodison Road intent on spitting more abuse at their former hero. The vitriol washes over him these days, with opponents just as incapable of breaking the England striker's resolve out on the pitch. Everton had swarmed all over the 19-year-old attempting to suffocate his threat but, in this mood, Rooney is irrepressible.
"He was always quick but his appreciation of the game is better now and improving all the time," said the home captain David Weir. "He's beginning to learn where he can be dangerous and hurt you and that makes him so difficult to play against. You learn that from playing at the highest level every week and he's picking things up from that.
"He's a fantastic player at a fantastic club and it's frightening to say it but he can only get better. He's already achieved a lot but there's definitely more to come. I think he's starting to believe he's one of the best players in the world and he's putting in the performances to justify that. He doesn't just stand up front and make it easy for you. You never really know where he is."
THE TIMES
Even if the team were to sweep all before them for the next few years, there would be a great number of supporters who would continue to despise the new regime, but there is little doubt that, having "hit the ground running" — Sir Alex Ferguson’s phrase of the moment — United’s players have done something to slow down the resistance movement. Back-to-back victories against Debrecen, in a Champions League qualifier, and Everton have transformed the climate at United.
Their build-up to the season was turbulent, with Rio Ferdinand hounded for refusing to sign a new contract and Ferguson at loggerheads with Roy Keane over training arrangements, but all is calm once more, with Keane back in the fold and Ferdinand, having finally put pen to paper, being embraced again by the supporters. When they can even afford to laugh at the takeover, it is clear that the mood has changed.
It might have been different had Everton managed to capitalise on a 20-minute period of intense pressure in the first half , but United, with the help of two Dutchmen, returned to the dressing-room in the ascendancy. Edwin van der Sar marked his Premiership debut for the club with the first of two point-blank saves from Tim Cahill before Ruud van Nistelrooy, looking far happier than the player who spent most of last season out of condition or out of sorts, converted John O’Shea’s cross in the 43rd minute.
The half-time scoreline was harsh on Everton, much like their defeat by Villarreal in the Champions League qualifier four days earlier, but they had Joseph Yobo to blame for handing the second goal to Rooney within 30 seconds of the restart. Yobo has the ability to be one of the best central defenders in the Premiership, but his absent-minded pass into the path of a grateful Rooney was by no means unprecedented. David Moyes, the Everton manager, said that he was "disappointed" with the Nigerian.
Everton had the two most impressive midfield players on view, Phil Neville starring against his former club and Cahill displaying a thrusting energy that would not go amiss in Ferguson’s team, but Rooney was on a different plain, showing a maturity which, allied to his extraordinary skill and his ever-improving physique, makes him unrecognisable from the raw talent who left Goodison Park 12 months ago. "Wayne has always had confidence in himself, but now he ’s starting to believe he’s one of the best players in the world and he’s putting in the performances to justify that," David Weir, his former team-mate said, adding, with a degree of foreboding for the rest of the Premiership, that "there’s much more to come from him."
THE INDEPENDENT
It was the slightest of insults, yet one the pugilist within Wayne Rooney would have deemed worthy of an emphatic retort. For the first time since he "Could have been a God but chose to be a Devil", as the graffiti outside Goodison Park put it last year, the announcement of the Manchester United striker's name provoked a reaction lacking the venom of his previous two visits home.
Perhaps it was Everton's way of showing that, with a new season and a team improved by the proceeds of Rooney's transfer fee, they were ready to move on. However, it was not for them to decide. Superstars only leave centre stage on their own terms, and before the rest of the Premiership had even begun Rooney had given his former club, plus Chelsea, Arsenal and any potential World Cup rival a painful reminder that, in a crucial campaign for club and country, he is not to be ignored.
"He is starting to believe he is one of the best players in the world and now his performances are starting to justify it," said David Weir, the Everton captain, who first trained alongside Rooney while the striker was waiting to sit his GCSEs. "He was always quick but his appreciation of what is going on, where to go and how to cause you maximum problems have improved. We couldn't get near him.
"He is playing at the highest level every week and, it is frightening to say, but he will only get better."
Rooney accepted the burden of providing Sir Alex Ferguson with the three points and early Premiership lead he craved, as well as ensuring hostilities were renewed with the Goodison Park crowd. Gestures towards the Gwladys Street End were unnecessary and bizarre, given how members of his own family still sit there, as an assist, a goal and a captivating display that orchestrated the flow of United's entire performance were able to revive the anger on their own.
"If he was playing in goal or at centre-half he'd still be fantastic, he's a lucky boy" said David Moyes, the Everton manager, who must have wished for the defensive version of Rooney after Joseph Yobo's aberration ended any prospect of an Everton response to Ruud van Nistelrooy's 43nd-minute opener. The Nigerian international presented Rooney with the finest pass he has ever received from an Everton player 28 seconds after the restart, gifting the 19-year-old a first goal against his former club and United the platform upon which to stroll thereafter.
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
A one-horse race, boasts Chelsea's chief executive. "Rubbish," says Wayne Rooney, the Luke Skywalker of the planetary battle between the Premiership's big three. While there is Rooney there is hope for Manchester United, who could have spent double the £26 million they paid Everton and still claimed value for money.
However many top pros Chelsea sign, United have bought Europe's best young footballer. Only the latest wave of Brazilian magicians can match him for pace, power and artistry. At the back of the directors' box at Goodison Park during United's comfortable 2-0 victory on Saturday Everton's apprentices shook their heads and cooed as their team's defenders bounced off the club's lost wonderchild. Tony Hibbert, the right-back, would have had more joy arm-wrestling the Terminator.
Lest we forget, United have finished third in each of the last two Premiership campaigns - and ended last season without a trophy for only the fourth time in 13 years. Their twin failings in 2004-05 were a slow start and a poor goals tally: 58 in 38 matches, their lowest ratio since 1990, and a sharp drop on their Premiership average of 76.
United's baffling unwillingness to send a rescue helicopter to Madrid for Michael Owen must be rooted in the awkward fact that Sir Alex Ferguson already has four strikers worth a combined £65 million. But if he culled the eager but limited Alan Smith and the perpetually fragile Louis Saha, a three-man assassination squad of Owen, Rooney and Van Nistelrooy would strike more fear into Chelsea and Arsenal.
An academic aside, admittedly. Both Rooney and Van Nistelrooy scored against an Everton team who began the week by losing a Champions League qualifier to Villarreal. Van Nistelrooy's goal came two minutes before half-time from a cross by John O'Shea and Rooney plunged the blade into his boyhood love 30 seconds after the break when Joseph Yobo played an excruciatingly silly back pass across his goal.