Ryan mighty

Nicholas: hailed Giggs

Giggs is just so clever, has a brilliant imagination and I say let's just keep enjoying this guy for as long as he plays because he's an absolute delight.

Charlie Nicholas
Quotes of the week

Related links

Teams

• Manchester United
• Portsmouth

Also see

• Match Report

Portsmouth 1-4 Man Utd
Soccer Saturday analysis

Wayne Rooney bagged a hat-trick at Fratton Park, but will have to share the headlines with Giggs who scored his 100th Premier League goal with a fine free-kick as Manchester United closed the gap on Chelsea at the top of the table.

Nicholas said the passing and dribbling skills that are associated with Giggs were in evidence again, but he admitted he was amazed by the willingness of a player on the eve of his 36th birthday to make runs from midfield to support Rooney.

Nicholas said: "He's always had that lovely fluency to his game and now it's passing rather than the dribbling skills.

"But he was even doing the dribbling skills today as much as the sweet passing; he's inventive; he does step-overs with Wayne Rooney.

"You could see Rooney starting to get excited when he saw Giggs on the ball. Paul Scholes, we know is clever, but Giggs is something different. He was running beyond Rooney and running in support of Rooney.

"Antonio Valencia played well, but Giggs and Rooney are just fantastic together."

Appetite

However, it was not just the fitness of Giggs that caught Nicholas' eye, but also his appetite to work hard and his willingness to track back.

And Nicholas hopes we will see a few more seasons from him.

He continued: "A lot of people will say that in the modern-day game he's the wrong side of 30.

"The players are getting fitter and fitter because they look after themselves and Giggs is just so supple and well balanced.

"He had injury problems when he was younger, he managed to get over those muscle problems, the hamstrings in particular.

"But if you don't want to do it, if you don't have the appetite to do it, you'll get found out at this level.

"This guy was breaking his neck to go and support Rooney, he was chasing things back into the corner and he had no right to win the penalty for the third goal but he never gave it up.

"He's just so clever, has a brilliant imagination and I say let's just keep enjoying this guy for as long as he plays because he's an absolute delight."

Issues

Giggs helped to ensure Avram Grant could not enjoy a winning start to his tenure as Portsmouth manager.

Nicholas feels Pompey still have issues to address up front and in defence, but said Grant could take comfort from the work rate of his players.

"They made chances today and you can't always say that," he said.

"You've got to take advantage if a situation comes your way, but they made plenty of chances and the effort was decent.

"They're too slack at the back but in general terms I think this is one that Avram will happily say: 'I wasn't expecting anything from it, we move on and we're playing well enough and positive enough to start climbing that table'.

"There were a lot of good performances today."