At the end of a week in which Dimitar Berbatov was criticised heavily for his penalty miss in the FA Cup semi-final, the Bulgarian tormented his former club and proved just why United shelled out so much money to secure his signature last summer.
Against Tottenham Hotspur, the 28-year-old dazzled in United's 5-2 win, with Sir Alex describing his performance as "fantastic".
"I don't think he gave the ball away once, throughout the entire game," the boss told MUTV. "I thought he was our best player in the first half and then in the second he produced some wonderful moments.
"He produces moments that make you sit back and say: 'that's world class'. The pass he gave Ronaldo in the second half was unbelievable."
Berbatov didn't feature in United's 2-0 win against Portsmouth in midweek, three days after his somewhat casual penalty had been saved at Wembley. Many media outlets lambasted the striker for the miss, while radio phone-ins were awash with suggestion that the Bulgarian was overpriced.
"Look, he missed a penalty kick. Many players have done that," reasoned Sir Alex. "Rio missed one last weekend as well and it’s all forgotten about.
"But because we paid so much money for Berbatov people are on his back. I know it was a bad penalty kick, I'm not making excuses for it. But we have to move on. It’s only a missed penalty.
"He produced some fantastic football last week but didn’t get the credit because of the penalty miss."