Wayne Rooney scored a hat-trick and Ander Herrera bagged his first goal of the season as Manchester United cruised into the Champions’ League group stages with a 4-0 win over Club Brugge.
The England striker, having gone 10 games without a goal, slotted home the opener on 20 minutes as his side breezed towards a 7-1 aggregate score.
Rooney capped off a wonderful team move from close range for a second, before rounding off his first hat-trick since August 2011 eight minutes later with another neat finish inside the box.
Herrera made it 4-0 just after the hour-mark but it should have been five when substitute Javier Hernandez stepped up to take a late penalty, but slipped and put it wide.
United manager Louis van Gaal warned against complacency, despite taking a 3-1 lead into the second leg in Belgium, and his side did not show anything of the sort.
Rooney was lively from the outset and, after Tom De Sutter’s close-range effort was blocked by Luke Shaw, he and Juan Mata began to torment Brugge defenders.
But it was Memphis Depay who deserved the plaudits for the opener, cutting inside from the left and beating two players before feinting to shoot, and setting up Rooney with superbly weighted pass.
Depay could have doubled United’s lead before the break when Rooney turned provider and chipped the ball into his stride in the box, but his shot was blocked by the last defender.
Brugge had reacted well to going behind, having a decent spell that saw a number of crosses flash across the box, but Depay had a second chance before the interval, again stopped by his marker before a shot could be had.
Bastian Schweinsteiger replaced Adnan Januzaj at the break and brought experienced calm into United’s midfield, beginning the move that allowed Herrera to cross unselfishly for Rooney to tap the second into an empty net on 49 minutes.
And Schweinsteiger was the catalyst for Rooney’s third too – finding Mata on the right, who cut inside and played in Rooney to slot home through the keeper’s legs.
Six minutes later Schweinsteiger got the direct assist he deserved when his through-ball put Herrera into acres of space to find the right-hand corner and United’s fourth.
Hernandez, whose United future has been far from certain this summer, had the chance for a first goal of his own after Oscar Duarte was harshly judged to have handled a cross from the right – but his standing leg ripped the turf from under him and he could not put a clean strike on the spot-kick.
