Ronaldo Exorcises Demons At The Stadium Of Light (Benfica 0 - Manchester United 1)

Ronaldo earned his right to begin his journey as a United legend tonight. It was at the Estadio da Luz where he fell from grace in Dec 05, with a disgraceful and immature performance and a sending off. I was ready to write him off then. However tonight he not only redeemed himself with a scintillating display but capped it off with a level of maturity and presence that's only reserved for United legends. Tonight he showed why he will be special. Tonight he stood up to be counted when so many of his teammates went missing.

For a full 60 minutes, we were horribly shit. Apart from Ronaldo, our entire midfield was bullied into submission. Scholes and Carrick were awful, giving the ball away cheaply, leaving O'Shea to clean up their mess. Today the result went our way, but our lack of a ball winner will come back to haunt us in a big way one day. Suddenly having a Phil Neville, Nicky Butt or even a Quinton Fortune in midfield doesn't sound too bad.

Rooney had his 4th off day in a row. His touch was simply absymal. He was either hitting it too hard or too softly. Ferguson should have substituted him much earlier in the game. Everytime the ball went to Rooney, it was given away to the opponents. Rooney needs to get out of his funk soon. He's one of our key players and we can't have him playing badly, especially when so many other players are playing like shit too.

Thankfully for the entire game, Benfica's forwards were as inert as our midfield. Despite all their possession, they hardly threatened our goal.

Our goal came in the 60th minute when Ronaldo (every good move was started by him) released Saha on the right wing. Saha cut passed his man and fired a screamer into the goal from the edge of the penalty area.

The goal practically killed off Benfica's challenge. Or at least the game suddenly became easier on us. We still gave the ball away alot, but the Benfica players seemed to play with their heads held low.

This was not a classic display by our lads, but I'm glad to have the 3 points in the bag. This is an easy group and we should make it into the next round without much trouble. However if we continue playing like the way we have, we're going to be in big trouble in the next round when we face some of the better teams. The consolation is that we would probably have the opportunity to strengthen our squad, especially the midfield.