By OIiver Kay

IT HAS BECOME A FAVOURITE PASTIME of Manchester United supporters to ponder how different life might be without Roman Abramovich at Chelsea, but imagine a world without Wayne Rooney. Life at Old Trafford has been chastening enough over the past two seasons, with upheaval in the boardroom and precious little happening in the trophy room, but Rooney has brought happiness to their lives and for that, at least, they should be thankful.

Not for the first time since his arrival in Manchester, those supporters went away yesterday enthusing about Rooney above all else. It had been one of United’s best performances of the season and everything revolved around the man in the No 8 shirt. It was not only the two goals — remarkably his first of 2006 in the Barclays Premiership — it was another masterclass from a 20-year-old with the world at his feet and, it is pleasing to report, a smile on his face.

Rooney proved unplayable for a Newcastle United defence that he seemed intent on taking back to the dark ages of the Graeme Souness regime. Glenn Roeder, after tasting defeat for the first time in seven matches in temporary charge, would have been forgiven for cursing the 20-year-old for the way he humiliated Peter Ramage, Jean-Alain Boumsong and others, but even the Newcastle caretaker manager expressed his admiration.

“These days, there’s companies like ProZone that give us so much information on players,” Roeder said, “but you can’t nullify a player like that. That’s what makes this game so beautiful. There’s a player with the potential, in three or four years, to be the No 1 in the world. He’s a huge talent. I just wished he played for us.”

He might have done. Newcastle were the first to bid for Rooney after he asked for a move from Everton in August 2004, but that seems even more absurd now than at the time. For all that they have stabilised since Roeder took charge, Newcastle remain a poor team.

Rooney was in one of those moods where he could have beaten the opposition on his own, but Newcastle gave him several helping hands. Ramage set the ball rolling in the eighth minute, turning towards his own goal and underhitting a back-pass into the no man’s land between Boumsong and Shay Given. Rooney nipped in, took one touch and stroked the ball over the reach of the advancing Given.

Within four minutes it was 2-0, with Emre Belözoglu the culprit this time, overhitting a pass to Scott Parker that allowed John O’Shea to intercept. O’Shea played a one-two with Louis Saha before slipping the ball to Rooney, who held off Ramage and beat Given from the edge of the penalty area.

With as little as 12 minutes gone it was game over and Alan Shearer looked a sad figure in attack on what promises to be his last appearance at Old Trafford. Sir Alex Ferguson claimed that his team “could have had ten” and, given the clear opportunities missed by Saha, Cristiano Ronaldo and perhaps above all by Rooney, who stroked the ball against the inside of a post after dribbling around Given in the second half, it was not such an exaggeration.

It was such one-way traffic that Ferguson felt vindicated in leaving out Ruud van Nistelrooy again in favour of Saha. “There’s all this stupid talk, but it boils down to: ‘Does Louis deserve to play?’ ” Ferguson said. “And I think he does.” But not quite like Rooney. “When I’m retired and I’ve got medals from the league and the FA Cup and the Champions League and hopefully the World Cup, I can say that I’ve succeeded in the game,” he says in an interview to be broadcast on Sky Sports One tomorrow. For now, his medal collection is disappointingly small, but if a large part of the game is about spreading joy, Rooney has already succeeded.