Premiership: Wigan Athletic 1 - 3 Manchester United

Good news for Steve McClaren at last. England can relax a little, Wayne Rooney is on his way back to form.

He might not be banging in the goals yet, but Rooney hit the bar here as well as laying on two of Manchester United's goals and if he carries on at this rate of improvement, in five months' time the England striker should be something approaching Superman again.

'That's Wayne's best performance in a United shirt this season, especially the second half,' Sir Alex Ferguson, the United manager, said. 'With Louis Saha he was a real handful. We always said he only needed games and I think the two internationals might have helped him.'

If that was cheek from the mischievous Scot, it was nowhere as cheeky as the United fans in the first half, parading a banner suggesting they were bigger than England at a time when they were trailing to Wigan. The home side were good value for their lead for the first 45 minutes, even though their only plan seemed to be to try and hang on to it, but the game was up as soon as Ferguson sent on Ryan Giggs for the second half to allow Rooney to come in from the left and forage through the middle with Saha.

From then on it was a question of how many United would score, with Rooney popping up right and left to find space and play others in, and Wigan knew at the end that only indifferent finishing let them off relatively lightly. 'They battered us in the second half,' the ever-honest Paul Jewell said. 'We were too easy to play against and we were well beaten.'

That is a familiar scenario for Jewell, who has had the dubious honour of losing 4-0 to United on no fewer than four occasions when in charge of Wigan and before that Bradford, though at least this time his side were able to alter the script. Barely four minutes were on the clock when Patrice Evra was penalised for handball 30 yards out and after Denny Landzaat and Kevin Kilbane had tapped the free-kick back, Leighton Baines comprehensively beat Edwin Van der Sar with a blistering drive.

Baines could find himself in the England squad soon, on the strength of his last two under-21s performances and the fact that Ashley Cole will be suspended for the next competitive fixture, though on this occasion the left-back's defending was not as impressive as his shooting. Twice in the first half he was skinned by Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, who is only a stand-in winger in the absence of Cristiano Ronaldo, and just before the half-hour Baines could only stand and gawp like everyone else as Rooney turned him in his own area to crash a shot against the bar.

That was a warning for Wigan, as was Evra bringing a fine save from Chris Kirkland at the end of the first half. Looking particularly blunt in attack, where Emile Heskey and Henri Camara are a million miles away from forming a partnership, the home side knew they faced a long 45 minutes once Giggs took the field.

So it proved. Solskjaer could have scored in the opening minute of the second half and Saha should have scored 11 minutes later when he collected Rooney's pass and beat Arjan de Zeeuw, Baines and Kirkland, only to stab the ball wide with the hard work done.

The respite only lasted a few more minutes. Nobody bothered to jump with Nemanja Vidic from Giggs' corner and the Serbia defender's first goal in England brought United level. Five minutes later they were in front, when Gary Teale's poor control let Rooney in again for Saha to bring his cross down expertly and score in the same movement.

There was never a hint of a comeback, in fact Rooney, Saha and Solskjaer all missed decent chances to extend United's lead in normal time, before a Rooney flick in stoppage time allowed Solskjaer to show his habitual composure and ensure the final score was a more accurate reflection of the game.

United can look forward to bringing back Ronaldo and Gary Neville against Copenhagen in the Champions League at Old Trafford on Tuesday, while Wigan wait for Manchester City to visit on Saturday wondering what happened to the sparkle of last season. Not only have they only one win, an old worry is resurfacing with the crowd some 5,000 down on capacity. That is desperately disappointing for a local derby with United and suggests Wigan might suffer like Blackburn in seeing newly-won fans drift away through a poor start.

'We would like a few more through the door,' Jewell said, slightly wearily. 'We've still come a long way in a short time.'