Champions! United Wins No. 17!

Wigan 0 - Manchester United 2
Scorers
Manchester United: Ronaldo (pen 33), Giggs (80)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Brown, Evra, Scholes (Hargreaves 67), Carrick, Park (Giggs 68), Ronaldo, Rooney, Tevez

Giggs scored the vital second goal late in the game to win the Premiership title for United. It was fitting that he rounded up the scoring after coming on as a substitute, equalling Sir Bobby Charlton's United appearance of 758 games. We had to withstand some nervous moments in the game, holding on to Ronaldo's dubious penalty in the first half.

Ly, Kentona and myself decided to catch this game together at Cow's place, whilst dicussing if we should make the trip to Moscow on the 21st (yes, we're nuts). The discussion came to an abrupt end when according to reliable sources, the ticket prices had escalated to 3000 euros on the blackmarket!!!! Then there was also the additional problem of getting accomodation. Apparently the hotels were fully booked on that night, much in line with the rumours that Abramobitch had made numerous high profile bookings. Although Ly swears by the authenticity of his source, it sounds terribly dubious to me. Then again, he works in a travel related industry and I'm not.

Speaking of dubious, today's referee, Steve Bennett, was making an uncharactistically high number of them. But I really shouldn't be complaining, since most of them went our way, especially in the first half.

Wigan started the game brightly, or rather, we started the game poorly. Perhaps it was nerves, but we were quite awful. Scholes was on a one man mission to get himself sent off. He was lunging himself in every tackle and with the game barely a 15 minutes gone, he had already earned himself a yellow. Had Bennett had any balls, Scholes could've seen a second for an ugly elbow on Palacios. He was a lucky lucky man today.

Rio then handled the ball in the area and there was no call from the referee. Again we got away. Perhaps it was going to be our day afterall.

On the other end of the pitch, Boyce lunged wildly at Rooney and Bennett pointed to the spot. It looked terribly harsh on the replay. Rooney was going for the ball but probably wasn't really in control. Terribly dubious penalty to award.

Ronaldo stepped up and scored. It wasn't a beauty and had Kirkland moved in the right direction, it would've been saved. It was a nervous penalty. We were in the lead and the title was ours to lose. That's all that mattered.

In truth, it was just what the doctor ordered. Wigan were having the better of the exchanges and gaining the upper hand.

We had the better spell early in the second half, coming close on a couple of occasions. Scholes should've gotten a penalty, but Steve Bennett swallowed his whistle. I suppose this is a reflection of how the league was won. On hindsight there have been decisions that have gone against us, but over the course of the season, it evened itself out.

Slowly but surely, Steve Bruce's men got back into the game and were really beginning to look menacing. They had a couple of close attempts that caused some really nervy moments in out penalty area. This was made especially so after the news filtering into the stadium was that Chelsea were leading against Bolton.

Fergie threw on Hargreaves for Scholes and Giggs for Park. Tevez was a bag of nerves, giving the ball away everytime he touched it. Ronaldo was no better. In fact he was that whiny kid 3 years ago that we all hated. The only guy playing with a generous bag of balls upfront was Rooney.

And it was only fitting that he made the all important pass to a wide wide open Giggs to score the all important second goal. Wigan's defenders were all over the place for a good 5 seconds, allowing Giggs all the time, space and room to receive the pass.

That goal in the last ten minutes was the ritalin we all needed for both fans and players. We hung on calmly and strolled to the finish line. Over at Stamford Bridge, Chelsea drew with Bolton in the dying seconds.

It was a job well done against a tough opponent today. Wigan pushed us to the limits today but we prevailed.

It was a job well done against a tough rival over the course of the season. Chelsea pushed us to the limits and made this victory all the more sweeter.

We're now just one title away from levelling Liverpool's haul, and it would give me immerse pleasure if we can even things up next season. But before even looking that far, we have a very important game in 10 days time. Another chance to close the gap against Liverpool as the best in England.