Champions Manchester United maintained their winning start to the season when goals from Ruud van Nistelrooy and Paul Scholes gave them a 2-1 win over Newcastle United at St James' Park.

Newcastle struck first in a highly entertaining premier league match which kicked off at noon when Alan Shearer powerfully headed home a Laurent Robert free-kick after Scholes handled in the 26th minute.

That completed an unhappy few minutes for United who were denied a penalty by referee Uriah Rennie when Ryan Giggs appeared to be fouled two minutes earlier. That incident led to United's irate manager Alex Ferguson being ordered from the dugout by Rennie for swearing at the officials.

But United gradually took control of the match and scored twice in nine minutes early in the second half with both goals engineered by United skipper Roy Keane.

After 51 minutes he played a perfect through pass to Van Nistelrooy who turned and fired home his 50th premier league goal in his 68th match.

He also scored for the 10th successive match -- equalling the record for the English top division established by former Liverpool striker John Aldridge in 1987.

Then after 59 minutes Keane created United's winner, playing a deep angled ball through the United defence which Scholes chested home into an empty net.

It was United's 20th league match without defeat dating back to December last year, and put them on top of the table for a few hours at least until the rest of Saturday's matches were played later.