Beckham takes a rest as Man Utd ease past Boavista

England captain David Beckham was left on the bench as Manchester United got back to winning ways with a comprehensive 3-0 Champions League defeat of Boavista on Wednesday.

The midfielder watched on as Ruud van Nistelrooy scored twice either side of a Laurent Blanc header to ensure United's recent poor run of results came to an end.

However, manager Alex Ferguson said Beckham had not been dropped, only rested as a precautionary measure.

"David has had a long season and it's taken its toll," he said.

"He has been bothered with a back injury and sometimes you have to arrest that before he gets any worse."

United had won just one of their previous eight matches and after being widely criticised manager Alex Ferguson had refused to speak to certain parts of the media.

But after a couple of early scares they settled into their familiar pattern of high tempo play and Van Nistelrooy opened the scoring in the 31st minute after a sharp exchange between Juan Sebastian Veron and Phil Neville.

"The first goal won us the game," Ferguson said. "Once we got in front it looked as if we were going to win."

"It was a good disciplined performance. The key was we never made a mistake in the match and played some simple football at times."

"There were some good individual displays but I think the most important thing is that haven't lost a goal, there was no carelessness about us and it was a good team display."

Ferguson changed his preferred lone striker formation to include Dwight Yorke for his first Champions League start of the season, saying Boavista playing three central defenders suited the change.

"It meant they couldn't play the ball out," he said. "Dwight's performance was very good. His strength and the way he held up play was good. Van Nistelrooy gave us the goal threat and I was pleased with that."

Boavista coach Jamie Pacheco also pinpointed the first goal as the turning point of the match, but claimed that it should have been ruled out for offside.

"We began very well and it was very even at the beginning, but Manchester United took advantage of our error for the first goal," he said.

"United deserved to win but the scoreline did not give a true reflection of our performance -- and the first goal was offside."

"We are a tired team compared to the one that played Liverpool in the opening stage," he added.

The Portuguese champions, who twice drew with Liverpool in the previous stage, had early chances with Fabien Barthez saving from Duda and Armando Petit.

But once Van Nistelrooy broke the deadlock it was one-way traffic with Beckham able to enjoy his night off.

"The great thing is they can put that to bed now until February 20th and now try and regain some leeway in the (premier) league and that's very important," Ferguson added.