I could explain it but I willnae bother,” Sir Alex Ferguson said with a smile. How did he dump Europe’s most prolific striker and make Manchester United more deadly? “He kicked my soul,” said Ruud van Nistelrooy about being jettisoned, but Ferguson does not wish to put the boot in. In any case, all those footballs thudding into opponents’ nets speak louder than explanations.

Van Nistelrooy, nine months after being sold to Real Madrid, is already but an Old Trafford memory. He scored 150 times in 219 games for United but goal output is higher without him. “I think it’s the flow of the football and the speed at which we’re playing that’s created so many chances,” is all Ferguson will say of what has changed. “They’re all weighing in with their share. Cristiano Ronaldo, 21 goals, Wayne Rooney, 20, Louis Saha 13, Ole Gunnar [Solskjaer], 11. I mean, that’s quite good, that. We’ve had 19 different goalscorers — 19 is very high.”

When AC Milan met United in 2005 they could concentrate on one man. Then, Van Nistelrooy was returning after three months out and his comeback was supposed to tip the balance of the tie, but Alessandro Nesta policed him and he missed chances in both legs as United exited without scoring. It is perfectly imaginable that Milan might prevail again, but a repeat of United going goalless over three hours is extremely hard to conceive.

“When you’ve got one scorer the whole team looks to and he goes through a bad patch, what do you rely on?” said Frank Stapleton, the former United striker. “Last time Milan could pick up Van Nistelrooy but, now, who do they try and stop? If Cristiano Ronaldo’s marked, Paul Scholes will score. If Wayne Rooney’s off form, there’s Ryan Giggs. Alan Smith, Louis Saha and Ole Gunnar Solskjaer can get goals. Sheffield United went manto-man against the entire United forward line and Michael Carrick came from midfield to score.”

Carrick exemplifies how Ferguson’s squad are spurting goals. In eight years with West Ham and Tottenham he scored eight times. In nine months at United he has already struck on six occasions. It is down to Ferguson’s positive mien. Previous managers saw Carrick as purely a holding midfielder but Ferguson perceived something more.

Noting the beautifully clean way Carrick strikes a football, his long stride and appreciation of space, he felt there no reason why the player could not time a run forward and threaten with accurate shooting. Ferguson also remembered the young Carrick his scouts tracked when he was a teenage striker for Wallsend Boys Club. “We knew him as a schoolboy in Newcastle when he was a gangly kid,” said Ferguson, “He went to West Ham and was just a big skin-and-bones player, but you could see he had talent. At Tottenham you could see more improvement and last summer he’d come to that age, 25, when I just felt it was a good time to get him. He’s physically matured and done a lot of work on his strength with our people. In the last few weeks he’s been sensational. There’s no doubt success develops people.”

Carrick is one of several United players enjoying their best scoring seasons. Ronaldo and Rooney are others. United have hit the net more than 1,900 times under Ferguson but never at a better goals-per-game rate. They are on course to score more times in a campaign than any top division club since Tottenham in 1962-63. The fast and fluent football Ferguson feels is responsible was not achieved with Van Nistelrooy who, rather than interchange with colleagues, took up fixed positions, and whose link-up play, while proficient, was plodding. “The bottom line is, was he a team player?

“You’d say ‘no’ in the pure sense. It doesn’t mean he didn’t try and by scoring 30 goals per season he did his job, so you can’t criticise him, but the team looks better without him,” said Stapleton. “Look how the players rotate. Any one of six can play in the centre-forward position and all United’s attackers mix it up. Van Nistelrooy rarely moved out of the centre and had a set style: play off someone and get on the end of things.

“Now players move naturally. You see Rooney wide and Ronaldo in the middle, then vice versa. Giggs back in midfield, then Solskjaer.”

Ferguson believes camaraderie to be a factor. He spoke of “the friendships that have developed between players, forged through the team growing together over the last few years”. With Scholes suspended and Saha unlikely to be fit on Tuesday, his squad’s ability to cover for one another will be tested. A home first leg offers the opportunity to control the tie. It is an occasion for more scoring. “We created chances [in 2005] and we’ll create chances again,” said Ferguson. “The vital question is will we take them? If you don’t, at this level, you’ve only yourself to blame. But if we win on our own ground without conceding a goal we’ll be hard to beat.” He’s confident his team are two years stronger, two years wiser.

Ferguson ticked off a reporter who forgot to add the Champions League final to United’s number of remaining games, but when asked if he would prefer winning another English or European title, he was all humility. “The thing is not to be greedy in life. If I won the league I’d be delighted. If I won the Champions League I’d be delighted. If you win a big trophy nowadays, you’ve got to be happy. I’m no going to be greedy.”

Van Nistelrooy was and that was his problem. Without him United gorge on goals.