Ronaldo's double sends United top of the table

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MANCHESTER, Oct 6 (AFP): Cristiano Ronaldo struck twice as Manchester United blew away their goalscoring woes with an emphatic 4-0 victory against Wigan that sent them top of the Premier League Saturday.
Ronaldo's double, which followed Carlos Tevez's 54th minute opener, made the game safe for United before Wayne Rooney cemented victory with his first league goal of the season in the closing stages at Old Trafford.
United lost striker Louis Saha in the warm-up with a knee injury and the goalscoring problem that has affected them all season continued in the first-half against Chris Hutchings's team.
Wigan hardly made things easy for United, adopting a rigid 4-5-1 formation that was wholly defensive, but the home side certainly had enough of the ball to make the visitors pay for their negative approach.
Wigan's resilience and two early injuries, suffered by Nemanja Vidic and John O'Shea, made life difficult for United, though. Serbian centre-half Vidic lasted just 20 minutes before walking off the pitch with concussion following two blows to the head in challenges with Marcus Bent and Paul Scharner.
Republic of Ireland international O'Shea then followed him out of the action nine minutes later with a thigh injury that makes him extremely doubtful for his country's forthcoming Euro 2008 qualifier against Germany.
So it was a frustrating first-half for the champions after referee Mike Riley had ignored penalty appeals on five minutes following Michael Brown's clumsy challenge on Ronaldo.
The next chance did not come until the 32nd minute and that fell to Wigan, with Australian midfielder Josip Skoko testing keeper Tomasz Kuszczak with a 30-yard strike.
Ronaldo replied with another long-range effort for United, but they did not break into the penalty area until first-half stoppage time, when Tevez shot over after being released by Ryan Giggs.