It was a European night to remember at Old Trafford as Manchester United embarrassed AC Milan 4-0 in the Champions League. David Beckham made his long-awaited return to his old stomping ground and Wayne Rooney confirmed his status as one of the best strikers in the world with another two goals.

No surprise then that the England duo dominate the back pages of Thursday's newspapers.

Writing in The Independent James Lawton likens Rooney to an unbeatable hand in a poker game and expects the striker to be at the peak of his considerable powers when the World Cup kicks-off in June.

"When Wayne Rooney scored his second goal at the start of the second half – and his 30th of the season – Sir Alex Ferguson, who was chastising him so recently for his insistence on grabbing every available second of game time, did not respond with any great abandonment to the fact that his team were now freewheeling into the quarter-finals of the Champions League. He just grinned like a man holding an unbeatable hand in another round of poker.

Unbeatable, certainly, in the knowledge that he could not want more from the 24-year-old who has so spectacularly filled the void left by Cristiano Ronaldo at the end of last season.

In his own perfect world, Ferguson would have Rooney as the exclusive driving hammer of all the remaining hopes he carries into the final phase of his extraordinary career. But if he frets over the fact that Rooney has also worked his way to the centre of England's best hopes for this summer's World Cup finals in South Africa – and, at the age of 24 perhaps at least two more – he must count it as the cost of possessing a national football treasure."

In The Times, Matt Dickinson turns his attention to David Beckham, who took to the Old Trafford pitch amid a standing ovation and left to rapturous applause as he wrapped an anti-Glazer green and gold scarf around his neck.

"His legs are not what they were when last he played at Old Trafford, but no one could accuse David Beckham of losing the ability to work a crowd.

The last man off the pitch last night, his name resounding around the ground, Beckham stopped by the tunnel, took an anti-Glazer green-and-gold scarf and slipped it round his neck in front of the Stretford End. A very good player - but a PR genius.

His skill at diplomacy ensured that a scarf was as far as he would go. Afterwards he sidestepped an invitation to criticise the Glazers, the loathed owners who have saddled the club with vast debts. Fellowship with the fans who acclaimed him is one thing, but he is not about to apply for leadership of the green-and-gold movement."