United Digs Deep For Victory

Manchester United 3 - Aston Villa 2
Scorers
Manchester United: Ronaldo (14,80), Macheda (90)
Aston Villa: Carew (30), Agbonlahor (58)

Team: Van der Sar, Evans, Neville, O'Shea, Evra, Carrick, Fletcher, Nani (Macheda 61), Ronaldo, Giggs, Tevez (Welback 87)

We were down to bare bones today and it showed. Vidic, Scholes and Rooney were all serving suspensions and were terribly missed. Berbatov and Rio, normally first team players, were out with injuries, although I personally didn't miss them terribly.

Villa showed absolutely no sympathy to our plight and were determined to make the most of their annual donation to Old Trafford. The opening moments of the game were totally dominated by Agbonlahor running circles around Gary Neville. They created so many chances that it was Fulham all over again.

I was watching the game with a few mates at a Clementi kopitiam, hoping to break the jinx which had followed me the last couple of games by pulling our collective karma together. And it didn't look at all good. In fact, we were hoping that we didn't dig ourselves too deep a hole before the team decided to play football.

This time it looked like our collective karma worked wonders. Friedel gifted us a freekick when he handled a backpass. Giggs rolled the ball to Ronaldo who whacked it into the top right corner giving us an undeserved lead.

Despite their good work, Villa were one down and their confidence started to fade. We couldn't exploit their brief moment of weakness and it wasn't long before Carew found himself being marked by Neville. Neville had neither the strength, pace nor height for such a tough and one-side appointment. And on the half hour mark, Carew easily lost Neville and headed a cross into the net. That was Neville's last meaningful contribution as a centre-back. He was returned to his normal position as right-back. Not that it made much difference. He continually was left huffing and puffing after speedy wingers like Agbonlahor and Ashley Young.

Villa had the upper hand and the half time whistle was just what was needed for us to regroup.

Sadly, half time was also what Villa needed to refocus and this time it was Agbonlahor who headed home Petrov's cross giving Villa the lead in a see-saw contest. Well, actually to called it a see-saw contest was giving United too much credit. We never really looked like scoring despite having a good portion of the possession.

2-1 down in a crucial game, it looked like Liverpool's season. Ferguson's response was to bring on 17-year old Italian Fedrico Macheda into the fray. Remember the name.

We still played like crap and Villa probably had the better chances until Ronaldo took over the game. With ten minutes left in the game, he took a wonderful shot that curled past Friedel to level the scores.

Tevez was sacrificed for Welback and he nearly made an immediate impact with a shot stopped point blank. Then in injury time, Macheda happened.

The young 17-year old twisted and turned in the Villa box before curling a beauty to crash Villa's dreams. It was a coolly taken goal. Huge emphasis on coolly.

It's been sometime since we've had a young player come in with such an impact. He plays hard, and more importantly he seems to have loads of confidence and spunk. I know this is probably abit premature, but I think we can afford to let Tevez go at the end of the season, as much as I hate it. But damn, Macheda's impact in this game reminds me of Ole's debut.

If he continues to get opportunites to perform like this, we may have a winner on our hands.

And to all the Liverpool fans who were crooning over their result yesterday, eat this!

Lastly, collective karma rules! The only downside is that everyone's gonna really unproductive at work in the morning.