As opening games go,
Manchester United will have to be happy with this one. They won, they kept a clean sheet and Ole Gunnar Solskjær was noisily serenaded by all four sides of the ground. Sure, there was the impertinence of José Mourinho, in his new role in the television studios, opining that Manchester City’s B team would stand a better chance of winning the Premier League. Yet this was the fifth season in a row United have won their first game of a top-flight season and the last time that happened was 1910 - the very year that Old Trafford opened for business.
Not that anyone should be getting too carried away just yet. Or, indeed, thinking that Mourinho might necessarily have been mistaken. A 4-0 winning margin does not quite tell the full story, particularly when taking into account a first half in which Chelsea’s players often gave their opponents the run-around, hitting the woodwork twice as well as creating all sorts of danger.