City visit Old Trafford in defensive formation and despite a few Tiger half chances, it was the home side that dominated matters with Wayne Rooney contributing all four goals scored in the game.

Report by Steve Weatherill.

Bah.

Well inside the last ten minutes of this game, with the score locked at just 1-0, there was a slim chance we might have pinched a point. The home side, loaded with talent yet burdened by disinterested arrogance, had failed dismally to convert the chances that offered them the opportunity to flay us. And we had, to our credit, kept battling manfully, if, in most positions, to limited effect. Whereupon Rooney scored his second. Then his third. And then his fourth.

Crumple.

Wayne Rooney is extravagantly gifted, able to move the ball as easily off his right side as his left side, strong yet nimble, and able to finish with precision using feet and head. He is also an unfailingly honest worker: you get the impression he would be simply incapable of sauntering around showing the posturing preen preferred by the able but lazy Berbatov or the unable and lazy Nani. He's the best player England has produced in fifty years, since Bobby Charlton, and he was far too good for Hull City yesterday. But, just as last month in Hull, it was only Rooney that we couldn't cope with. The rest of the Manchester United players didn't have the wit or power to unsettle our side. That suggests something very troubling for Manchester United, who, without Cristiano Ronaldo (in most respects Rooney's equal, in some his superior), look profoundly one-dimensional. For the Tigs, it suggests something more cheering - that the effort and commitment that is necessary (though not sufficient) to survive in this Division is still present in our squad. And, at last, the forthcoming fixture list is starting to look a bit more manageable.

Settling in for an attritional display of the type that extracted a point from Spurs last week:

Myhill
McShane Zayatte Gardner Dawson
Garcia Barmby Boateng Geovanni Hunt
Fagan

No surprises there. Not much attacking purpose either.

The game began tamely, which suited us, and there was no threat at all until, err, they scored.

This happened after eight minutes. A shot by Paul Scholes from just outside the box was blocked by Boaz, the ball ran loose to Rooney who took a touch and, under no pressure, rammed it back past our stranded goalkeeper into the net. Boaz might feel he could have diverted the initial shot wide of his goal rather than straight back into play: more than one of our defenders might reflect that allowing Wayne Rooney two unhindered touches deep inside the penalty box is not a route to fame or fortune.

Bah.

One down, but it soon becomes apparent there's little to fear here, Rooney aside. Michael Owen scurries around anxiously. He's looking for the ball, but what he really needs to find is his own youthful and uninjured body from circa 1999. And, barring a gig as Doctor Who's assistant, he's not going to find it. The light died a while ago, poor lad. Nani is in possession of a youthful and uninjured body, but also a brainless head. He plays like a doll and I suppose only the club's shattered finances prevent Ferguson booting him into touch and buying an expensive replacement. Darren Fletcher is an excellent holding midfielder, but that role, doubtless vital in the forthcoming European Cup tie with Milan, is largely irrelevant at home to Hull City. Scholes pokes around, but has greatly reduced mobility nowadays, you'd not be surprised to see him take a breather by leaning for support on a tartan shopping trolley, while Park is the sort of player who capers around eagerly in a good side but would be ruthlessly exposed as unimaginative watercarrier if he didn't have talented teammates to help - a Sammy Lee for the modern generation.

On 16 Fagan wins a generously awarded free-kick but Geo pops it feebly into the wall. Set pieces are obviously our best chance of a goal against the stronger sides, so this was wastefulness that's not easily forgiven. On 18 a misheaded backpass permits Barmby to test Van der Sar, and we force a couple of corners, to no avail. Then, down our end, Gardner tackles Fletcher firmly and the ball spins free to Rooney, whose shot is deflected over the bar. Next, Dawson executes a perfect tackle on Owen in the box: another corner, soundly dealt with.

There's little fluency about the home side. Little to like either. Nani bellyflops pitifully in front of the City support. Blatant cheating. Derision is all it deserves. He gets that, but he gets twenty grand a week (or whatever) too. Values aren't skewed. There just aren't values.

'Love United, hate Glazers' rose like a murmur from the home support. Only a small minority bothered to sing. The slack-jawed rubber-necking tourists that made up the majority of the occupants of seats in the home areas (I hesitate to call them 'fans') probably didn't even recognise the words. Even the few that did sing kept it quiet, fearful of a threatening tap on the shoulder from a burly steward. The one anti-Glazer banner that did emerge, close to the final whistle, was whisked down with alacrity. It's partial surrender, it's total occupation - the moneymen have won.

It's Manchester I feel sorry for - Manchester the city, home to radical tradition, the political eruption of the working-class, cauldron of cultural vibrancy, the city that swaggers and, unlike Leeds or Liverpool, has so much to swagger about. The Peterloo Massacre, the cotton mills and the ship canal, Neville Cardus, Alfred Waterhouse, Elizabeth Gaskell, Antony Wilson and, greatest activist of them all, greater even than Mark E. Smith, the noble and brave Benny Rothman. Football too is a part of Manchester, but both its clubs, the red one for years, the blue one more recently, are scornful of their dissenting roots, today preferring bland aspiration to attain a 'global brand', to quit industrial Lancashire's fertile grime in favour of twenty-four-hour passionless consumption, from Seoul via Dubai all the way to LA, and no, don't pause in Harpurhey or Longsight. Turn on, tune in, shell out - passive consumers are what they breed, watch the footie and then a game show, never leaving the sofa. The age of the fan as participant - the fan who goes to the game to CARE - is not simply gone, it's been deliberately suffocated. The football clubs of Manchester will always be smaller than the great Northern city itself, and yet today they pretend to outgrow it. The ambition is unworthy and it is vain. Never before has Manchester United football club, stinking in debt and casually dismissive of the heartland tradition of the English game, seemed so small.

That such damage should be inflicted by Paul-Michael Glazer, so brilliant on Saturday evenings as Starsky and Hutch served up the consistently perfect appetiser to Match of the Day, is football's ultimate indignity. Do you think he can still do that jump where he lands on the car bonnet?

On 33 Rooney thumps a 25-yard free-kick wide. On 40 Nani crosses, Zayatte audaciously backheels the ball away from goal, Rooney screws a shot wide. On 44 a slick move allows Owen to attempt a deft little dink over Boaz but our keeper is wise to the trick, and saves well. They are, obviously, the better side. But it's a move here, a few passes there. Nothing to get really worried about.

Rooney picks up a booking shortly before half-time for clattering Hunt close by the touchline. It's needless, it's crazy stuff, of course, but you have to love it: he did the same last year, going daft in frustration as the Tigs made life increasingly difficult for the home side, and the glory is that Rooney, unlike plenty of teammates, is not thinking 'Ach, it's only Hull City, I'm not getting worked up about this one', he's just playing a game of football and, whatever the opposition, he's going to hurtle in full-tilt. Rooney doesn't calculate the way that Ronaldo does. He plays on the edge of the red mist. That passion is his greatest virtue, and his most enfeebling vice. Wild yet honest explosions of emotion are what have prevented Rooney as yet from becoming as effective a top-level footballer as Cristiano Ronaldo. But they make him a far more likeable man.

The early stages of the second half are interrupted after Craig Fagan accidentally wallops a linesman. At Old Trafford there is a sharp drop all around the pitch (to help drainage, I suppose), and the linesman tumbles down like an avalanche victim. A tot of brandy later and he's OK, and we settle down to a long period of broken, uninspired football. Hunt's great. But his corners are inconsistent. And so again set pieces, our best hope of reward, are ill-used.

Mendy replaces Barmby, and the erratic Frenchman, allowed to ignore defending thanks to the sturdy presence of McShane behind him, brings some vigour to our right side. But the opening 20 or so minutes of the second half are deathlessly devoid of creativity. It's a quiet spell that allows me to remark on how very fine a player Zayatte has become. If we keep him in this transfer window I'll be delighted but surprised.

No club, as yet, has been 'linked' with Craig Fagan on SKY's rolling coverage. Fagan was asked to play up front on his own against Manchester United at Old Trafford yesterday. I don't think anyone familiar with his career could reasonably have expected him to offer up more than he actually did. He did his best. And accordingly there was never any serious likelihood we would score a goal yesterday. That's just the way it is.

Garcia comes off after an entirely acceptable shift, replaced by Ghilas, who joins Fagan up front. The reputation of our Algerian soared among the City support as he was consistently left out of the team through the Autumn. As our other forwards peered myopically at the goal and punted the ball in any direction but the correct one, it was to the exciting and lively Ghilas that our expectations turned. Well, we're getting a look at him now. And we're getting a feel for why neither Mr Brown nor the manager of Algeria seems to fancy him. Plenty of running. Little of it anywhere near the ball. None of it useful. We will, I hope, have a North African forward fit and ready to terrify Wolves next Saturday but I suspect his name will be Zaki, not Ghilas.

On 74 Mendy punts a left-foot shot high and wide. Geo trots off, and - it's time to gamble! - on comes Kilbane. Ah.

On 76 we get our brightest glimpse of a snatched equaliser. McShane delivers a decent ball into the box, there's a moment of defensive dithering and Ghilas pounces like a cobra. The ball slithers apologetically across the face of the goal and exits stage-right. Fast chap, johnny cobra. Just not very good at football.

Inside the final ten the roof falls in.

Boaz, heroic last week, clumsily fubles a Nani free-kick on to the crossbar. The ball bounces back into play, pings around dangerously, before Rooney joins in and thrashes a powerful shot past Boaz. He'd been quiet for most of the second half, perhaps mindful of the booking he'd picked up just before the break, but Rooney's involvement immediately transforms the pedestrian into the urgent. A few minutes later and we are opened up gruesomely down our left, and, with even the feckless Nani capable of exploiting the extravagant space on offer, his cross reaches Rooney deep inside the box and unmarked. That would be 3-0. And, as five extra minutes are played, some tired Hull City players watch with sullen resignation as Rooney punts the fourth past a disconsolate Boaz.

There's a moment left for something very odd indeed to happen - almost. Those hoping to tell their grandchildren, or for that matter their mates in the pub next week, that 'I've seen Kevin Kilbane score for City at Old Trafford' were almost rewarded as a snatched half-volley flies netwards through a crowded penalty box. But it's straight at Van Der Sar, who catches it, presumably without having seen it until the last split-second.

Off they went into the night, the corporate clan of the Premier League clutching their branded booty. Manchester United's - but Hull City's too. What possesses people to occupy seats in the Hull City segment clutching their full-to-the-brim bags from the United Megastore, spending their afternoon like peasants with free milk taking photographs of a football ground that is not ours? I hate it, I hate so much of this Premier League. Walking away, I began to reflect on whether next season I'll prefer to keep my fifty quid in my pocket rather than contribute to American profits and a plastic football theme park.

Next season? Mmm. I then reflected that it could be quite some time until I next have the opportunity to pay money to see Hull City play at Old Trafford.

HULL CITY (4-5-1): Myhill; McShane, Zayatte, Gardner, Dawson; Garcia, Barmby, Geovanni, Boateng, Hunt; Fagan.  Subs: Mendy (for Barmby, 58), Ghilas (for Garcia, 70), Kilbane (for Geovanni, 74), Mouyokolo, Vennegoor of Hesselink, Cairney, Duke.

Goals: None

Booked: Fagan

Sent Off: None

MANCHESTER UNITED: Van der Sar, Evra, Ferdinand, Evans, Rafael, Park, Fletcher, Scholes, Nani, Rooney, Owen.  Subs: Gibson (for Scholes, 72), Berbatov (for Owen, 72), Fabio (for Evra, 88), Kuszczak, Brown, Valencia, Carrick.

Goals: Rooney 8, 82, 86, 90

Booked: Rooney

Sent Off: None

REFEREE:    S Bennett

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