SIXTY five per cent possession, 24 shots at goal of which 11 were on target and last season's Player of the Year Cristiano Ronaldo having six strikes at goal of which only one counted.

Despite those statistics and in what England striker Wayne Rooney described as 'a training session', Manchester United could only find the net four times after camping in their opponents' half.

All that at the Old Trafford cauldron where rich United pickings are quite a formality and against a 'schoolboy' Dynamo Kiev side which has lost all four Champions League matches, conceding 12 goals in the process.

Yes, it was a simple cruise for United which confirmed their place in the next stage of the biggest European club competition.

But what was startling was the fact that United - with an enviable array of international stars of whom some are out-and-out strikers - could miss a bucketful of chances.

Ronaldo, Rooney and Carlos Tevez all squandered chances from inside the box.

Two clear examples: Ronaldo's snap shot in the 61st minute went embarrassingly wide, and Rooney's powerful drive from close range in the 83rd minute flew frustratingly straight to Kiev goalkeepr Shovkovskiy.

And this takes the cake: How on earth could Tevez delay his final execution with the goal staring at him in the 58th minute is beyond me.

No doubt, the trio got their names on the scoresheet after Gerard Pique's opener, which had a tinge of fortune because the defender rose to open accounts with a header when two United players looked clearly offside.

There were other clear-cut chances that went astray too.

Nani twisted and turned but lacked the final touch, Danny Simpson moved into advanced positions but showed no killer-instinct when in the box, and Michael Carrick and Darren Fletcher sadly missed the venomous United volley that Paul Scholes used to execute from outside the box.

And when are United going to make their free-kicks and corners count as in the days of David Beckham (free-kicks), and the era of Steve Bruce, Gary Pallister, Eric Cantona, Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole?

Thirteen corners proved fruitless because the taker could not release a proper ball into the opponents' goal area.

And of the half-dozen free-kicks, one counted via a strange route - it struck Tevez on the back of the head, looped in the air and fell to Pique who nodded home in the 31st minute.

CONTRAST

Contrast these figures with Arsenal's seven goals with 64 per cent possession and Liverpool's record eight goals from 58 per cent possession, and you get the drift of what I'm saying about not translating dominance into goals.

Agreed, it was a good win that sealed a berth in the next round for Alex Ferguson's faithfuls on a week in which he celebrated his 21st year with the club.

But where was the spark at the Theatre of Dreams? And how can acclaimed players who also pull on their national jerseys on a regular basis struggle to find their scoring boots when inside the box?

An avalanche of goals was what most people expected.

As my colleague Brian Miller explains in the betting page inside (Page 58), the Singapore Pools' odds for Any Other Score (United to score six and above) started with a $17 offer and quickly slid to $14 and eventually $9.

But the goals did not flow as quickly as many anticipated.

And not discounting the fact that we did witness a superb one-two between Tevez and Rooney before the Argentinian ace scored a magnificent goal, United looked disunited so many times when it came to the art of goal-poaching.

The goal-scoring machine still needs oiling. And United's strikers must be sharper.

Rooney says he got 'frustrated and bored' with the game.

So did I, a die-hard United fan, because the finishing was woeful indeed.