Solskjaer sets United on cruise control

Barcelona and Lazio are avoided in next phase as under-strength Old Trafford team secure the top spot

The Champions' League qualification process is complicated enough to tax a nuclear physicist but Manchester United have done their best to keep their part as simple as possible. Last night's win over the limited Sturm Graz ensured they finish top of Group D and now their second phase is in the lap of Friday's draw.

The Champions' League qualification process is complicated enough to tax a nuclear physicist but Manchester United have done their best to keep their part as simple as possible. Last night's win over the limited Sturm Graz ensured they finish top of Group D and now their second phase is in the lap of Friday's draw.

Ole Gunnar Solskjaer and Roy Keane, with his third goal in as many matches, meant United stayed ahead of Marseilles, the only team who could have caught them. The upshot amid the forest of second-phase permutations is that they have avoided meeting either Barcelona or Lazio, who have also finished top of their respective groups.

With four minutes remaining Ivica Vastic scored a penalty for the Austrians after he had been brought down by Ryan Giggs, but that was merely a statistic. That apart the match, played at near friendly pace and urgency, will be forgotten quicker than a football chairman's promise to back his manager.

For all the pre-match ponderings about the importance of United's final position in Group D, the significance of an occasion can best be gauged by the prices the ticket touts are charging and at 5.45pm - two hours before the kick-off - the plaintive cry outside Old Trafford Metro Station was "tickets at face value". Enough said.

United's team also spoke volumes because Sir Alex Ferguson hardly transmitted a "win at all costs" philosophy with his selection. David Beckham and Paul Scholes were suspended but the opportunity to rest players had also been taken and Jaap Stam and Dwight Yorke's presence on the substitutes' bench was only as a precaution against things going radically wrong.

Graz had the first two opportunities of the match and had struck the post before the home team had got used to looking for Beckham on the right flank and finding Jonathan Greening in his place. It was from that wing that Graz first threatened. Mehrdad Minavand played a short corner to Vastic, whose attempt at a low cross was ignored by everyone and United were fortunate the ball hit the post and bounced to safety.

It took United 15 minutes to make their first truly threatening response and, in truth, they should have scored when Keane's cross was headed back into the six-yard box by David May. Andy Cole was first to this invitation but declined, deftly volleying wide from ridiculously close range.

If Cole had been profligate then he was unfortunate six minutes later after Solskjaer had harried the Graz goalkeeper, Josef Schicklgruber, into dropping Gary Neville's cross. Cole turned sharply and rifled a low shot through a thicket of players only to find Gerald Strafner alert on the line.

United were on top but they did not have a monopoly of near misses and Sturm Graz should have opened the scoring after 22 minutes. Vastic span adroitly and thumped the ball against a United post and if Tomislav Kocijan had even a modicum of accuracy he had to score. Instead he volleyed over.

The trend had been set and the rest of the first half was a hotchpotch of nearly somethings, the best of which both stemmed from Solskjaer. With one he headed wide when it would have been easier to score and with another he almost caught the Graz keeper with a cross that was inaccurate enough to become a shot.

The news that Marseilles, their only rivals for the top position, were losing at home to Croatia Zagreb was not designed to inject more urgency into United although Ferguson did introduce another regular first-teamer, Phil Neville, seven minutes after the restart and the effect was almost instantaneous.

The younger Neville won the ball in midfield, Cole swept a 30-yard pass to Solskjaer and his shot hit the side-netting to momentarily persuade supporters that the deadlock had been broken. Solskjaer had merely been refining his sights because he provided the real thing after 56 minutes. Greening crossed from the right, a defensive header made it to the edge of the penalty area and the Norwegian thumped a ferocious volley past Schicklgruber.

Manchester United (4-4-2): Bosnich; G Neville, Berg, May, Irwin (Higginbotham,75); Greening (Cruyff, 64), Wilson (P Neville, 52), Keane, Giggs; Cole, Solskjaer. Substitutes not used: Stam, Yorke, Clegg, Van der Gouw (gk).

Sturm Graz (3-5-2): Schicklgruber; Strafner, Neukirchner, Prilasnig; Schopp, Mahlich, Angibeaud (Bardel, 70), Minavand, Martens (Reinmayr, 70); Vastic, Kocijan (Bochtler, 73). Substitutes not used: Szabics, Grobl, Sidorczuk (gk)

Referee: R Pedersen (Nor).