PRESS BOX VIEW – GUARDIAN

‘Manchester United are, for the record, 12 points behind the Premiership leaders Chelsea but it will soon be time to stop keeping count. The side are spoken of as challengers only as a mark of respect for what they once were. Everton, with their confidence re-established, were far too able to let Sir Alex Ferguson's team kid themselves that they control their own destiny any longer.

The pattern is so obvious as to be lurid. United, just as they had in the defeat by Benfica in Lisbon, had some shining touches before the interval, only to lapse into dull, blunt effort in the second half. As there had been at the Estadio da Luz, opportunities on the counter-attack emerged regularly for the opposition and a calmer Everton might have had a victory.

All United currently wish for is the traditional rout that the home crowd once watched in a state of complacent pride in their squad. When the pressure was applied in this absorbing fixture, however, it smacked of desperation more than gusto.

Alan Smith, for instance, was booked after a few fouls and had to be replaced by Darren Fletcher when he could not stop himself from committing more offences. The referee Rob Styles's card finger must have started to itch. Everton made sure that United had no easy means of scraping their morale off the floor where it lay in Portugal last Wednesday.

Departure from the Champions League as the bottom team, behind Lille, in their group was a landmark failure but United have been dwindling for years. They have a sprinkling of exceptional talents even now but most of them are too old to sustain their influence over an entire match.

While the sheer beauty of Paul Scholes' accomplishment here put him above everyone else on the field, the influence was not sustained. Ryan Giggs' display followed that same arc. The Welshman, 32, and the Englishman, 31, have been roving and probing for many years. Although they can still run, the elan fades earlier than it once did.’