Wayne Rooney, the man heralded by David Moyes as "the last of the great street footballers" at the Cambridge Union last summer, produced arguably the most audacious flourish of his own remarkable canon last night by scoring with a spectacular lob from the halfway line.
Besides setting the platform for a second restorative Manchester United victory in four days, it was also redolent of that wondrous strike that David Beckham had unleashed from almost exactly the same spot against Wimbledon on August 17, 1996.
Better still, Beckham was inside the Boleyn Ground to see it, smiling broadly at the symmetry. The shot itself measured 57.9 yards as Rooney, in a glimpse of the genius that has persuaded United to part with £300,000 a week to retain his services, needed barely a second to let the ball come over his shoulder, set himself, and arrow the ball in a flawless arc over West Ham United's back-pedalling goalkeeper Adrián.
If any player ever can be worth such an eye-watering sum, then this was a feat to reinforce it. For Rooney was luminescent en route to his two goals here, with the first immediately earning its place alongside the bicycle kick to win last season's Manchester derby as a defining distillation of his United career.
All the pain of the defeat to Liverpool, all the torpor he had exhibited during United's dismal league campaign to date, evaporated in an instant as Rooney rediscovered the brand of skill that the club's supporter had waited until March 22 to witness.
By the time he was replaced with 15 minutes left by Javier Hernández, his name was being chanted with renewed gusto by the travelling band. If the evening was not already gratifying enough for Rooney, his brace of instinctive finishes also vaulted him to third on the list of United's leading scorers with 212, passing Jack Rowley.
In the absence of Robin van Persie, it fell to Rooney to fashion one of his most enduring Polaroid moments in a United jersey. Perhaps he knew an opportunity was beckoning from the sheer fragility of the West Ham defence, after Marouane Fellaini had been allowed one uncontested header in the six-yard box, but the striker's eighth-minute intervention was still a case of temerity writ large.
Letting the ball bounce over his shoulder on the halfway line, Rooney shaped his body to let fly with the most sumptuous volley, which caught Adrián indulging in a dozy piece of gardening by the halfway line and sailed straight into the back of the Spaniard's net.
If Rooney's celebrations were exuberant, then the cameras also caught the watching Beckham smiling wryly, relishing the shades of that masterstroke at Selhurst Park 18 years ago. It is extraordinary what Rooney can do when the mood takes him.
Six days earlier he had toiled against Liverpool in a display of dismaying anonymity, but this latest inscription in his scrapbook was a reminder of the player at his freshest at his flashiest.
His terrorising of West Ham did not end there as, fortified by the support of Juan Mata in a customary position behind the central striker, he provided one delicious cut-back across the area that Fellaini should have done more to control.
Mata was the wellspring of many of United's best moves, first teeing up Shinji Kagawa with an exquisite pass and then pouncing upon a loose ball to force Adrián into a sharp save.
But it was the inspired Rooney who always looked the most likely to engineer the breakthrough, and so it proved once more when Ashley Young, haring down the right, crossed low but a little too close to Mark Noble.
While Noble made a creditable effort to clear, it landed directly in the path of Rooney, who was scarcely required to shoot as the ball flew off his right boot and beyond the hapless Adrián. Initially it appeared to be a piece of outrageous good fortune, but replays suggested his technique was so flawless that he might even have meant it.
Rooney could have snaffled a hat-trick had he shown a touch more composure over Mata's cross at the back of the box, but rather than picking his angle he attempted another luscious volley, which this time was so miscued that it almost sailed out for a throw.
In the second half Moyes chose caution above enterprise, as United all but shut the game down with their assured passing game.
West Ham, as has been too familiar throughout their campaign, were far too one-dimensional to deal with it, with Kevin Nolan looking especially sluggish and Andy Carroll spurning at least two fine chances in a blur of hair and flying limbs.
For one night only, the irrepressible Rooney was simply not to be upstaged.
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