THE TIMES
Manchester United coasted into the knockout stages of the Champions League with two matches and a whole lot of fuel to spare. It comes to something when an entirely comfortable victory is something of an anticlimax, but such is United's superiority in this group that it was almost a disappointment to see them stop at four.
United were efficient rather than irresistible, steady rather than scintillating, yet still tore Dynamo Kiev to shreds. With better finishing it could have been a repeat of Liverpool's eight-goal triumph over Besiktas at Anfield on Tuesday night. United had 23 shots, not that overexertion was required.
Liverpool may have needed to put on a show after a poor start in this European campaign, but United had already made their point by getting into a position in which qualification was as good as assured after three matches. Technically, it was still possible for United to be pipped at the post by either Sporting Lisbon or AS Roma before this but logically it was never going to happen. Qualification was as great a certainty as death and taxes; as certain as victory last night.
There was a time when a pairing with Kiev would send a shiver of trepidation through even the best of Europe; not any more. Kiev came to Old Trafford with a man-for-man marking system, five at the back, four in midfield and only Artem Milevskiy up front. It was mind-numbing stuff and, fortunately, got them nowhere. Kiev were two goals down by half-time and conceded two more in the last 15 minutes to give a proper sense of distance to the scoreline. Oleg Luzhny, the Kiev coach late of Arsenal - although Arsène Wenger would have blushed at his tactics - may have been better off starting with Sergei Rebrov. He made a difference coming on at half-time and Kiev launched the odd counter-attack, forcing one save from Tomasz Kuszczak, but by then the game was long over.
So utterly in charge were United that the response to the win was almost muted, polite applause rather than the deafening cheer that would once have been standard for a result of this magnitude. Wayne Rooney claimed that the team were bored during the game, such was Kiev's lack of ambition, and maybe that could be advanced as mitigation for the number of misses, although Carlos Tévez must have been almost comatose to judge from the number of times he transgressed.
THE TELEGRAPH
As Sir Alex Ferguson entered his 22nd year in command, the only thing Old Trafford's great helmsman could still find to envy about Liverpool would be their number of European Cup finals.
Yet, while those at Anfield are engaged in a desperate struggle merely to qualify for the next phase of the Champions League, Manchester United strolled into the knockout stages almost with their hands in their pockets.
True, they did not score eight but it was hardly for the want of trying, especially in a surprisingly open second half. When Wayne Rooney tucked away United's third and Cristiano Ronaldo skipped through for the fourth, the moves seemed like training-ground exercises.
Early it might be, but Ferguson was already predicting that this was a campaign he felt would end in a final in Moscow. "We have had our disappointments in the Champions League but this year I really believe we are capable of going all the way," he said.
When the Kiev of Andrei Shevchenko, Sergei Rebrov and Oleg Luzhny reached the semi-finals of the European Cup in 1999, Ferguson feared facing them in Barcelona far more than Bayern Munich. Now they are a shell of that club. Rebrov has returned but was employed only as a second-half substitute while Luzhny found himself the club's third manager of the season.
Six years ago, he had been Arsenal's right-back when United had driven half-a-dozen goals past their supposed closest rivals. Now in charge of a side that had not won in the Champions League since 2004 and having seen United score four in the vast, charmless bowl of Kiev's Olympic Stadium, he would been desperate just for defeat with honour.
Ferguson felt able to give a new generation at Old Trafford - Gerard Pique and Danny Simpson - tastes of the Champions League with his young Irish centre-half, Jonny Evans, taking his chance from the bench and Tomasz Kuszczak allowing Edwin van der Sar to rest a foot injury after half-time.
What had angered Ferguson so much about Manchester United's early exit from the Carling Cup against Coventry here, was that it denied these players crucial first-team experience.
With United now qualified, those tests are likely to come against Sporting Lisbon and in Rome.
After half-an-hour's resistance, Kiev cracked. For once, Ronaldo decided to float in a free-kick rather than strike it pointlessly into the wall and Michael Carrick, returning for the first time since dislocating an elbow against Roma in September, nodded it against the back of Carlos Tevez's head. From there it ballooned up towards Pique who beat his marker to head it precisely into the corner of Olexandr Shovkovskiy's net.
THE GUARDIAN
Manchester United have gone through Group F like a team in a hurry and on this form they will be in a rush, too, to begin the next phase of the competition. Sir Alex Ferguson's team look like a side who mean business and their immaculate record in this season's competition was never going to be endangered by opponents with Dynamo Kiev's limitations.
Ferguson will never find tedium in the routine of 4-0 victories. This was the fifth time in the past six matches United had scored four goals and the feat was made even more impressive last night given that it was an experimental side, incorporating two 20-year-old reserves in defence.
One of them, Gerard Piqué, can reflect on a particularly satisfying evening's work, setting United on the way with his first goal for the club. Carlos Tevez doubled the lead before half-time before Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo added the final flourish on an evening of such superiority that Ferguson could afford to rest, among others, Rio Ferdinand, Ryan Giggs and Owen Hargreaves.
In total there were five changes from the side that locked horns with Arsenal at the weekend but, as gambles go, Ferguson's selection made perfect sense given that Blackburn Rovers, one of the Premier League's in-form sides, will form the opposition at Old Trafford on Sunday. Kiev had not won a point in their preceding three group games and to trace their last victory in the Champions League one has to go back to November 2004 or, outside their country, to March 2000.
It said a lot about them that the Ukrainian players were taking souvenir snaps of one another before kick-off. There are not many duff teams in this competition but Kiev's record is so poor that the club badge could be a wooden spoon and the only surprise when United took the lead was that it was their first serious attempt at goal and it had taken half an hour to come.
THE INDIE
Might Manchester United be on the threshold of adding a May evening in Moscow's Luzhniki Stadium next year to those they passed so memorably in London, in 1968, and Barcelona, 32 years later? Sir Alex Ferguson certainly thinks so and if the vigour and occasional swagger with which they qualified for the second round is any indication, then he might just be right.
United swept away Dynamo Kiev with such ease that Cristiano Ronaldo, the arch-creator, even found time for some mock touchline trickery in the second half in response to a United faithful who had affectionately teased him for messing up one of his step-overs at the end of the first.
Wayne Rooney, whose brilliant exchange with Carlos Tevez which fashioned the second goal was one of many great moments of creativity from him, was indignant that the Ukrainians had shown "no enthusiasm to play the game" and made it "like a training session". But United unwittingly added to that impression. They won at a breeze and Sporting Lisbon's failure to beat Roma in Portugal sends them through. It is five years since United started the tournament with four straight wins.
Rooney did his best to inject some fire befitting a match which his manager had pepped up by warning the players in his programme notes that they risked becoming "nearly men" if they failed to collect silverware. Indignant about the absence of a penalty after Vladyslav Vaschuk put an elbow into his face, which floored him in the area in the first half, he hacked at Artem Milevskiy in retaliation and was booked. There was something of the old, less composed Rooney in that - and he dispensed a bit more of the same in the second half.
But that, with the exception of two good second-half chances for substitute Diogo Rincon and Tiberiu Ghioane, was about as competitive as it got. There were echoes of the Besiktas defence which had capitulated at Anfield 24 hours earlier in the way Kiev marked and Rooney will rarely find himself in as much as space as when Nani crossed for him to net on 76 minutes, with Pape Diakhate, who had a torrid night, unable to track him.
By then, United were operating with a swagger and the only complaint was that they sometimes used one piece of trickery too many. After Rooney squared for Tevez early in the second half, the Argentine tried to sell a dummy and take three touches when one might have done.