Manchester United gained their first home league win of the season with a 2-0 victory over Bolton Wanderers.
Cristiano Ronaldo opened the scoring with a penalty when Jlloyd Samuel was adjudged to have brought down Ronaldo in the box just before the hour mark.
Substitute Wayne Rooney also found the net for the first time this season, curling home superbly after exchanging passes with Ronaldo to give the margin of United's triumph a more comfortable look.
United did get into their stride inside the first 15 minutes and found it difficult to break through a hard-working Bolton defence, aided superbly by the midfield industry of Gavin McCann.
Jussi Jaaskelainen was called upon on half a dozen occasions but most of his saves would be regarded as routine for the Finn, including the low Ronaldo free-kick he kept out at his near post.
low cross
On his first Barclays Premier League start since last May, Ronaldo took plenty of responsibility for United's goal search on his shoulders but while Tevez and Berbatov tried hard, there was no sense of a partnership between the pair.
The only time they were involved in anything meaningful was when they helped set up Rio Ferdinand. But the centre-half bounced his half-volley straight at Jaaskelainen.
Bolton could not claim to have posed even half the threat United had done. But they had established themselves as an attacking force long before Fabrice Muamba was presented with the best opportunity either side had to break the first-half deadlock.
As a former pupil of Arsene Wenger's at Arsenal, Muamba could at least have been expected to force Edwin van der Sar into a save when Gretar Rafn Steinsson's low cross rolled invitingly into his path after Ferdinand had slid in with Kevin Davies at the near post.
However, the England Under-21 international's shot nearly rolled out for a throw-in.
wrong way
Having got trips to Liverpool and Chelsea out of the way during an incredibly tough start to the season, now Ferguson was expecting his team to start winning.
But as the hour mark approached the opener still proved elusive, despite the improved efforts of Ronaldo.
Then they were awarded the penalty and Ronaldo simply stepped up and sent Jaaskelainen the wrong way.
The introduction of Rooney and Paul Scholes came not long afterwards.
Given his desire to play every minute of every game, Rooney was presumably not happy at being left out, so there must have been an element of 'I'll show you' about his superb curling shot which found the bottom corner after a neat exchange of passes with Ronaldo 13 minutes from time.
Scholes went close to increasing United's lead at the end but by then, the damage had been done for Bolton.
