THE TIMES
Sir Alex Ferguson has been at Old Trafford for nearly 21 years so there was never any chance that he would get carried away with a home victory over Wigan Athletic, but the Manchester United manager definitely had a spring in his step on Saturday. Ferguson had used his programme notes to predict that his side would start scoring goals again soon and unfortunately for Wigan his forwards backed up their manager's words with a display that suggested that normal service is about to be resumed at the home of the champions.
Ferguson's United teams have never had trouble scoring goals since the dark days of the late 1980s but a string of 1-0 victories and a lack of a cutting edge in front of goal had cast doubts on the manager's transfer policy during the summer. Why spend more than £50 million on a winger and two midfield players when United needed a striker with the killer instincts of Ruud van Nistelrooy? Did he really need Owen Hargreaves? Was it worth gambling more than £16 million on Anderson's potential?
The jury is still out on Hargreaves, who missed this game with a knee injury, but as far as Anderson is concerned, Ferguson appears to have struck gold.
The 19-year-old Brazil midfield player lasted only 45 minutes on his debut against Sunderland last month and he was on the pitch when a second-string United team were humbled by Coventry City in the Carling Cup 12 days ago, but now he grabbed the chance to show what he could do after he replaced Nemanja Vidic midway through the first half.
Ferguson is convinced that Anderson is good enough to replace Paul Scholes when the 32-year-old former England midfield player retires and nobody who witnessed his performance in this match would argue with the United manager.
Anderson appeared to have a lot on his plate when he took his place alongside Scholes in the United midfield as his teammates were having trouble finding a way through Wigan's five-man midfield and Josip Skoko was proving to be an effective shield in front of the visiting team's defence. Michael Brown introduced himself to the Brazilian with a couple of trade-mark crunching tackles before Anderson stamped his authority on the game after the interval.
THE GUARDIAN
Nine league games gone and Manchester United are starting to click. Wayne Rooney and Carlos Tevez are finding the net, Cristiano Ronaldo is reaching his destructive best and the new midfi elders Anderson and Nani are playing as to the manor born. Perhaps just as signifi cantly United can slot in two tyro defenders, Gerard Piqué and Danny Simpson, without losing a beat. All of which means Sir Alex Ferguson's side are coming nicely to the boil for their visit to Arsenal on November 3.
Gone was the frustration of six 1-0 victories this season that led to Ferguson bemoaning his side's inability to score enough goals. Instead came a fluidity and vibrancy from players who could feel they were close to recapturing the understanding that carried them to the title last May when they were, arguably, the second best team to Chelsea. "It seems to be coming together," said Ferguson, cautiously.
Chief among the talents on Saturday was Tevez, whose phenomenal workrate was acknowledged by a standing ovation when he left the pitch in the 81st minute. Wigan must have been glad to see the back of him, the Argentinian having been a thorn in their side since they joined forces with Sheffield United in an attempt to have points deducted from West Ham United over their registration of the player.
On Saturday it was Tevez's run on to Anderson's pass in the second half that ended Wigan's resistance and put United into top gear, his drag-back leaving Kevin Kilbane and Titus Bramble heading for the advertising hoardings before his skip around the goalkeeper Chris Kirkland gave him an unguarded net to shoot at.
THE TELEGRAPH
Carlos Tevez arrived at Manchester United with too great a pedigree for the unflattering comparisons with Garry Birtles, Peter Davenport and other infamous Old Trafford misfits to last for too long, but impressive reputations count for little when a player pulls on the red shirt of United, no matter how eye-catching the CV might have been.
Although United supporters have grown to trust implicitly the judgment of Sir Alex Ferguson, the question marks over Tevez have grown larger with every game. Can he reproduce his West Ham form in a United shirt? Is he too similar to Wayne Rooney? Why Tevez and not Fernando Torres?
Although the 23-year-old's ability was never in doubt, United followers have witnessed numerous players with big reputations shrink among equals at Old Trafford. The worry among them was that Tevez would prove to be more Juan Sebastian Veron than Eric Cantona and possess the same goal threat as Birtles and Davenport, two prized goalscorers who seemingly left their scoring boots at the City Ground when leaving Nottingham Forest for United in the 1980s.
There had certainly been little suggestion that Tevez and Rooney would develop into the formidable strike partnership that Ferguson had anticipated when he began his lengthy pursuit of Tevez at the end of last season.
In the handful of games in which they had been paired together, the two strikers seemed at a loss as to who would make which run and neither appeared comfortable playing in a more advanced role as an out-and-out centre-forward.
lack of pace, the kind possessed by the injury-prone Louis Saha, who limped out of the pre-match warm-up against Wigan with a knee problem, was another stick being used to beat the Rooney-Tevez partnership, but in the space of 40 second-half minutes on Saturday, the pair dispelled all of the doubts in emphatic fashion.