United Survives Russian Scare

Manchester United 3 - CSKA Moscow 3
Scorer
Manchester United: Owen (29), Scholes (84), Shennikov (og 90)
CSKA: Dzagoev (25), Krasic (30), Berezutsky (46)

Red Card
CSKA: Semberas (90)

Team: Van der Sar, Evans, Brown, Neville, Fabio (Evra 59), Fletcher, Scholes, Nani (Rooney 58), Valencia, Macheda (Obertan 82), Owen

My word, what a game! This is definitely the most exciting game we've played the entire season. Mine you, we weren't exactly good. For a good period we were quite rubbish at the back, conceeding 3 goals, but we came back strong. We came back really strong at the end.

CSKA took a shock lead in the 25th minute. Dzagoev took the ball down the centre and when the angle looked impossible, smashed the ball into Van der Sar's net. It was a brilliant goal.

United responded strongly via Owen's clinical strike. Despite looking rather blunt on a couple of previous attempts prior, his strike on this one was spot on and a nice turn around strike into the back of the net.

While we were still patting ourselves on the back, CSKA sucker punched us. Krasic took on our sleeping defense, fell, found his footing again, spun and hammered the ball into the goal, with our entire defense in sixes and sevens.

We went into the half trailing. I took the half time break to relieve myself and came out with the shock that we were trailing even further.

Fergie took a couple of quickfire substitutions, replacing Fabio and the ineffective Nani with Rooney and Evra. Our formation changed drastically with only Brown and Evans at the back and everyone else pressed forward.

We looked abit flat for a short period, coming to terms with the new formation. In that time, CSKA could have gone further ahead.

Slowly but surely we found our mojo and started to find kinks in the CSKA defense. After a couple of ridiculous near misses, a barrage of fine saves and a smashing header into the post, Scholes pulled one back with 5 minutes left on the clock.

Old Trafford suddenly sprung to life. The crowd which had been stunned to silence for a large period of the game, found their voice and it carried onto the pitch. There was a new spring in the steps and we looked increasingly dangerous with each passing minute.

It wasn't a surprise that we did indeed find the equalizer when Valencia's powerful shot was deflected into the goal by Shennikov. The lads pressed on for the winner into the 6 minutes of injury time, but that was perhaps too much to ask on what is already a memorable night.

This was a hardfought draw and at times we were our own worst enemy. But take nothing away from the army men from Russia. They played really well at times and barring a shaky looking defense are a really good team in Europe.

The lads should have their tails up for the weekend's mega super important game against Chelsea. They are the front runners for the league title and rightly so. They have an incredible team this season that doesn't look to have any weaknesses. Hopefully we can exploit any chinks in that formidable armour and show the way for everyone else.

But if I'm really honest, I'm not holding my hopes too high. Probably explains why I'm off to Kentona's stag party at the weekend instead of watching the game. If the venue does show the game, it's an added bonus.