VIEW FROM THE PRESSBOX

The Guardian

It is not a subject that Sir Alex Ferguson likes to discuss but there is a school of thought at Old Trafford - not least among some of the senior players - that, contrary to his public utterances, the oldest manager in the business may retire if Manchester United finish the season on a suitable high. "I am not going to leave this club as a loser," Ferguson once said, and what better way to bow out than with a Premiership and/or Champions League medal in his top pocket?

The alternative argument is that a crowbar would be needed to prise Ferguson away from his desk at a time when Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo are engaged in this increasingly bewitching contest about who should be recognised as the most exciting exponent of their art in world football.

A whole host of superlatives would be needed to analyse their performances on Saturday, a match that could conceivably register as United's finest display this season given the list of absentees and the early loss of Gary Neville through injury. Rooney's goals were exemplary: a 60-yard dash and deft chip over Jussi Jaaskelainen for his first and a shot with a sharp arrowhead at its end for his second. Ronaldo had to go some to outstrip his colleague yet he managed it so beautifully Carlos Queiroz, Ferguson's assistant, would describe the winger as the best player he has ever worked with.

It was some compliment from a man who has coached, among others, Luis Figo and Zinédine Zidane and the question was this: has any other player in United's history, even the great George Best, shimmered with such menace when in possession?

To see Ronaldo right now is to witness a man completely at love with his work, a footballer playing as though nothing comes more naturally. The Portuguese winger is still to cross the line between great footballer and football great but he is firmly on course and the beauty of it is that he refuses to do it the conventional way.

He will flick the ball with the outside of his left boot while leaning back looking at the sky. He will conjure up shots that dip at the last moment like a beach ball on a windy day. He will look one way and caress a pass in the opposite direction. He is not easy to copy. Cristiano Ronaldo dos Santos Aveiro makes his own rules when dealing with a football.

Gary Speed's 86th-minute penalty was a mere footnote - the referee, Alan Wiley, taking a hardline stance about Nemanja Vidic's push on Abdoulaye Faye - and the home side's dominance was such that Ferguson could withdraw Ryan Giggs early in the second half with tonight's FA Cup quarter-final replay against Middlesbrough in mind.

Giggs was imperious again, having collected his Player of the Month trophy before kick-off. Ferguson also had a prize to accept: his 19th Manager of the Month award since the Premiership's formation. As for Player of the Year, only Didier Drogba can prevent Ronaldo making it a landslide vote.

The Torygraph

According to the contorted logic of Sam Allardyce, the Bolton manager, you can lose a match with a poorly-taken kick-off. With Bolton technically and morally slaughtered by Manchester United, he had the nerve to complain it was because "we conceded three goals from our own dead-ball situations. . . gifted them three goals".

The Football Association clearly missed their chance: with Allardyce at the helm, any explanation of an England defeat need never have simply been that the opposition were superior, just dead-ball defiency.

The reality was that United produced an hour of exhilarating football, equalled this season by no side other than, occasionally, Arsenal. At the heart of Bolton's destruction for the second time this campaign - they lost 4-0 to United at home - lay three of the genuine jewels of the Premiership, Cristiano Ronaldo, Wayne Rooney and Ryan Giggs.

The three bring to the game a magic which has been part of the Old Trafford formula ever since Matt Busby re-assembled the club post-war. Love them or envy them, for half a century United have been the antidote to industrial football - as personified by Bolton.

Who is bothered, beyond the Reebok Stadium, about Bolton's "percentage" game? Ronaldo, Rooney and Giggs looked at it, shrugged and galloped away. Three down after 25 minutes, Bolton were left scavenging like seagulls on a windswept beach.

Allardyce was nearer the truth when, asked if the defeat left scars, he admitted: "We'll need a plastic surgeon." Optimistically, surgery might not be necessary for Gary Neville, who limped off with an ankle injury which will keep him out of England's games.

Bolton's rugged reputation, latterly dented, though they retain fifth place, depends on midfield control. Denied this by United's 4-2-3-1 formation - Michael Carrick and John O'Shea (in the absence of the suspended Paul Scholes) the playmakers, with Ronaldo and Park wide either side of Giggs in behind Rooney - Bolton were over-run.

The Times

Only self-destruction can deny Manchester United the Barclays Premiership title and only self-indulgence can deny Cristiano Ronaldo the individual honours to go with it. Resentment, fuelled by the excesses that come with his genius, may cloud the judgment of some within the Professional Footballers' Association and the Football Writers' Association, but if the awards are to go to the player who has illuminated this season like no other, then nobody, not even Didier Drogba, of Chelsea, can hold a candle to United's No 7.

This has not just been a wonderful season from Ronaldo. It has been extraordinary, the Portugal winger scaling heights of unplayable perfection rarely seen in English football in modern times. Thierry Henry enjoyed a similarly spectacular campaign for Arsenal's "Invincibles" in 2003-04, but before that one has to look back at least as far as John Barnes, in the Liverpool team of the late 1980s, to find a flair player who set such a consistently high level of match-winning performances — and possibly back as far as George Best in his prime.

When Ronaldo comes to reflect on his annus mirabilis at Old Trafford, he will recall starting with a bang against Fulham, some courageous performances against a background of hostility on away grounds and six goals in three matches as he seemed almost to carry the team through the Christmas period. But this, against a Bolton Wanderers side who also had the misfortune to face Wayne Rooney on top form, was yet another strikingly high note.

He did not add to his total of 17 goals, but, in setting up all three of United's first-half goals, two for Park Ji Sung and one for Rooney, he left most of the 76,058 crowd drooling. His combination with Rooney for the second goal, in the seventeenth minute, was breathtaking. Michael Carrick rose in the United penalty area to head away the danger from a throw-in by Gary Speed and, within 14 seconds, the ball was in the Bolton net, Ronaldo sprinting past two challenges and slipping a clever pass for Rooney to finish things off with an impudent dink.

It said everything about Ronaldo's performance that it eclipsed even that of Rooney. The England forward's second goal was another minor classic, slicing his shot across Jussi Jaaskelainen after Alan Smith, the substitute, sent him clear of Bolton's woeful defence.

Park's two goals were a fitting reward for his energy and movement, although United's task was facilitated by a Bolton side for whom Speed's late penalty was no consolation. Sam Allardyce was asked whether the match would leave scars. "Scars?" the Bolton manager asked. "We need a bloody plastic surgeon after that."