United Fails To Win Thriller

Aston Villa 2 - Manchester United 2
Scorers
Aston Villa: Young (pen 72), Albrighton (76)
Manchester United: Macheda (81), Vidic (85)

Team: Van der Sar, Rio, Vidic, Brown, Evra, Fletcher, Carrick, Park (Smalling 86), Nani, Berbatov (Macheda 73), Hernandez ( Obertan 73)

My word, what a thriller. Don't let the scoreline fool you. We were terrible for 80 minutes and only came alive in the final ten. Against a fairly depleted Villa side, this should count as a poor result, yet the comeback in the final 10 minutes is something to savour. It's a pity we couldn't have done it earlier in the game, but our front players were so poor that I didn't think they had a shot on target the entire game.

Villa were value for their lead. Ashley Young earned a penalty which he took himself. Prior to that, Villa had come close twice, both efforts hitting the woodwork.

In response to Villa taking the lead, Ferguson replaced both his strikers with Macheda and Obertan. Berbatov was back to his usual self. Sorry, he was worse than his usual self, he was trying hard to be Carrick. Hernandez wasn't much better either. He was on a one man mission to maim every Villa defender.

Promptly after the subsitutions, Villa went 2 up with a United-styled counter attack. Albrighton was on the end of the attack and he made no mistake to put ball into the net. Things looked really bleak. 2 goals down with less than 15 minutes left on the clock.

Cue Macheda. Having made his name against Villa, Macheda popped up to rifle Fletcher's backheel to pull one back for us. And only minutes later, Vidic made it a grandstand finish when he met Nani's cross to head home from an acute angle. Villa were stunned, while we pressed on for the winner.

It was an action-packed finale as we even threw Smalling on as another striker. But in the end, our away woes continued. We drew another away game, but this one didn't have such a bad taste in our mouths. We showed our mettle, albeit coming only in the final minutes of the game. And that only came after our subsitutes came on. Both Macheda and Obertan were pretty effective after coming on.

Berbatov and Hernandez weren't the only poor ones in the game. Park had an awful time. He was guilty giving the ball on numerous occasions and totally clueless going forward. Nani wasn't any better. He plays exactly like a teammate of mine, who falls at the slightest touch. If it's a genuine injury, it's understandable, but usually it isn't. Nani has a nasty streak of trying to dive for freekicks and get opponents into trouble. It's alot like Ronaldo when he first arrived. Nani needs to stamp that habit out. It's unsportsman-like and very un-United.

That said, it is a good result given the circumstances. I probably wouldn't have liked the result against a depleted Villa team at the start of the game, but considering just how poor we were and how hard we fought with the youngsters in the last 15 or so minutes, I'll gladly take this result and look ahead to the next game. I only have one request....when/if Rooney returns, can we bench Berbatov for good?