Well, at least we now know what you get for £30 million-plus these days: a cloak of invisibility, apparently. Dimitar Berbatov scored twice for Manchester United, both goals were offside, and neither infringement was spotted by the Belgian team of officials working with Frank de Bleeckere, the referee. Berbatov was taken off with 31 minutes remaining, denying him the opportunity to get quite possibly the most illegal hat-trick in the history of the competition, and, understandably, he did not look best pleased. Given the chance to be invisible for the night, why spoil the fun?

Wayne Rooney completed the scoring, his ninth goal in seven matches for United and England, and Celtic never looked like breaking a remarkable run of their own, that of never having won a Champions League game away from home. They are also the only team in this season’s tournament still awaiting a goal, a dismal statistic considering the underdog status of rivals such as BATE Borisov, Aalborg and Anorthosis Famagusta.

Celtic were outclassed here and even if United rode their luck with Berbatov’s goals, the visiting team were fortunate, too, that De Bleeckere ruled out a goal by Rooney after 53 minutes that was onside. In the end, there were few complaints, largely because the scoreline reflected fairly the balance of the match.

United started slowly but were dominant by the time Berbatov scored the opening goal after 30 minutes. Nani curled in a corner from the left and it was only half-cleared before John O’Shea, standing in for the injured Patrice Evra at left back, bundled the ball back in and Berbatov turned it over the line from close range while the Celtic defence stood, appealing. Replays showed he was offside, although the assistant referee may have been confused by Glenn Loovens’s decision to try to cover him at the last.

The second goal was a greater error, a brutal free kick from Cristiano Ronaldo was parried by Artur Boruc, the Celtic goalkeeper, only for Berbatov to be first on the scene, as can happen when a striker is given half a yard start on every defender. That the next attack brought a superbly timed run from Rooney that the assistant referee did adjudge offside was a delightful irony, although it probably will not have been received as such in either dugout.

Thoroughly beaten by now, Celtic could have been taken apart had Carlos Tévez, a substitute, not been trying so desperately hard to make an impression on a rare appearance, going it alone on a number of occasions when team play would have yielded a better route to goal. As it was, when he cut inside and found Rooney in the 75th minute, the man in form did not disappoint, holding the ball up on the edge of the area before hitting a low shot that eluded Boruc, scrambling across his goalline in vain.

Rooney is unstoppable at present and his performance in tandem with Berbatov here brought a smile to the face of Sir Alex Ferguson and probably triggered a few alarms at the clubs setting the pace in the Barclays Premier League. Uncertainty may surround the futures of Tévez and Ronaldo beyond the end of this season, but here and now United have the most potent partnership in the country. Celtic could not live with them, even on a night when Ronaldo’s performance left as many questions as answers hanging in the air.

At times on the right wing, he was his usual self, all flicks, tricks and stepovers, although no dummy was quite as expertly executed as the one sold by Ferguson before the game when he said the player was suffering from fatigue after playing too many matches so soon after returning from injury and hinted that he would be rested. Many in his audience bought it and, if Celtic did, too, his appearance from the start will have come as a disappointment, not least to Lee Naylor, the left back.

He decided the best policy was to let Ronaldo know of his presence early and may have regretted it as his opponent made it his aim in the next ten minutes to torment him as often as possible, feet flying in all directions and then, as often as not, the ball laid off squarely, simply, the footballer’s equivalent of a great sleight of hand card trick. One minute, Naylor would be staring intently at the ball in front of him, the next Ronaldo would have pulled off some act of distraction and it would have moved, imperceptibly, to a team-mate.

Yet for all this, Ronaldo does not look his usual self, more in demeanour than performance. He was glum and unsmiling when withdrawn after 82 minutes, an unbecoming reaction considering his team were three goals up.

Celtic had a few hopeful punts early on, a shot from Aiden McGeady that dipped viciously in front of Edwin van der Sar, the United goalkeeper, and another from Gary Caldwell after 18 minutes that was tipped over, but as the game wore on, United’s superiority showed. If the Premier League is the best in Europe, as Champions League form would indicate, then it is surely significant that only three Scottish players were present during the most recent round of fixtures.

The days when every good English side contained their sprinkling of Scotsmen are gone. Darren Fletcher, the Scotland captain, was at the heart of United’s midfield, but he is the exception. Celtic did not have any player that would have made the United starting line-up and the way the game developed reflected that.

It is a sign of the times that United, in addition to their three goals, could afford to miss so many other chances throughout the evening and still be comfortable. Matches such as this used to earn the dramatic branding, “The Battle of Britain”. These days, they barely constitute a skirmish.

Manchester United (4-4-2): E van der Sar — G Neville (sub: W Brown, 59min), J Evans, N Vidic, J O’Shea — C Ronaldo (sub: Park Ji Sung, 82), D Fletcher, Anderson, Nani — D Berbatov (sub: C Tévez, 59), W Rooney. Substitutes not used: T Kuszczak, R Giggs, Rafael da Silva, D Gibson.

Celtic (4-1-3-2): A Boruc — M Wilson, G Loovens, S McManus, L Naylor — G Caldwell — A McGeady, S Brown, B Robson (sub: S Maloney, 61) — S McDonald, S Nakamura (sub: P Hartley, 61). Substitutes not used: M Brown, A Hinkel, M Donati, C Sheridan, D O’Dea. Booked: Hartley, Loovens.

Referee: F de Bleeckere (Belgium).