P: United 3 -1 Aston Villa
PREVIEW
If familiarity breeds contempt, then United better be on their guard today against Aston Villa.
For the third time in as many weeks, Sir Alex’s men take on the Midlanders. Five goals and two wins would make this game seem like an easy afternoon. United have hardly had to raise their game to get past Martin O’Neill’s side, decimated by injuries and struggling for form.
But as Sir Alex is want to remind, football is full of surprises. A gallant Villa team held the champions to a draw and must certainly be seething after the Cup loss to United, when a fighting display that should have earned a draw came to nothing because of Kiraly’s goalkeeping error.
Captain Gary Neville is expecting a tougher contest. He said: “I am sure Villa will be as determined as they were in the previous two games. It may be more difficult because they will have been used to us over the last few weeks. There can no excuses. We have to go and win the match whatever that takes.”
United’s big guns - Nemanja Vidic, Edwin Van der Sar and Paul Scholes - are expected to return but most interest will focus on the fate of Henrik Larsson after his goal-scoring debut, now that Louis Saha has recovered from injury. Will the manager retain the Swede or field the Frenchman?
The manager is giving nothing away but though impressed with his new loan signing, has said that he wants to keep Larsson fresh. “Henrik’s first game was excellent for us,” Sir Alex said. “It gave us an insight into the type of player he is. He showed last week he can be a fantastic asset to us. He may not play all of the games but the important thing at his age and with his experience is he will understand that.”
Fortunately, the manager has a player on the same wavelength. Larsson said: “I was happy with my fitness and sharpness but I can’t get carried away because this was just one game. One swallow doesn’t make a summer and I know I need to keep working hard and keep improving.
“When I play next is up to the boss but whether I come on as a substitute or play from the start, I will be doing my best. This is very exciting. I just want to be able to play as big a part as possible while I’m with this great team.”
PREMIERSHIP RESULTS
Watford 0 - 3 Liverpool; Bolton W. 0 - 0 Manchester City; Charlton Athletic 1 - 3 Middlesbrough; Chelsea 4 - 0 Wigan ; Sheffield U. 1 - 1 Portsmouth; West Ham U. 3 - 3 Fulham; Everton 1 - 1 Reading; Tottenham H. 2 - 3 Newcastle
MATCH REPORT…
United 3 - 1 Villa
Park (11) Carrick (13) Ronaldo (35) / Agbonlahor (52)
Telegraph : Paul Scholes missed much of last season with an eye problem and, according to his Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson, his view of things is still blurred. But after another supreme demonstration of the midfield arts, Scholes showed that he clearly still possesses 20-20 football vision.
With United in flowing form and comfortably defending their six-point lead at the top of the Premiership while Chelsea are beset by problems off the field, Ferguson has not had more reasons to chuckle since Arsene Wenger’s Arsenal blew the 2003 Premiership title.
The only thing that brings a scowl to his features at present is Bayern Munich’s refusal to sell Owen Hargreaves to him. Yet, while there is no such thing as an embarrassment of riches, where on earth would Hargreaves fit into the team?
Michael Carrick, bought to fill the senior midfield role, is finally blossoming into the sort of player worthy of such elevated status at Old Trafford, riding tandem with Scholes and embellishing this performance with his first goal for the club. But it was Scholes himself, the man playing in Hargreaves’ holding position, who was the orchestrator-in-chief.
As Scholes offered a masterclass in how to control a game from midfield, reading the play so expertly that he was continually able to win the ball and dispatch it to a colleague in one fluid movement, it was easy to understand the frustration of England manager Steve McClaren, all of whose efforts to lure him back into the England flock have been rebuffed.
Of course, if former England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson had not continually banished him to the left wing, Scholes would not have quit and he could now have been in his majestic pomp for his country, with either Steven Gerrard or Frank Lampard wondering how they would ever be selected ahead of him. As Ferguson quipped afterwards: “He’s a marvellous player. Once he gets a bit of composure, he’ll be all right.”
With Scholes and Carrick hogging the spotlight, as well as possession of the ball, Cristiano Ronaldo, who has been handed the Premiership player of the month award for the second successive time, had to settle for a supporting part albeit he weighed in with his 13th goal of the season and half a dozen bewildering runs and tricks.
Poor old Villa did not secure a foothold in the game until it had already run away from them.Plenty of teams over the years have been beaten before kick-off at Old Trafford but few have had as much justification for such a defeatist attitude as Aston Villa, who had lost their previous eight encounters with United, including two in the past three weeks.
On top of that, they had not tasted victory for 11 matches, a run that might have left them rubbing shoulders with Watford if they had not made such a good start under Martin O’Neill.
O’Neill’s halo appears to have slipped around his throat since he was not even his usual vocal self on the sidelines, accepting defeat as meekly as his players.
Villa’s defence twice made pitiful attempts at clearances before Ji-Sung Park opened the scoring with his first of the season.A minute later, Carrick exchanged passes with Park before scoring with the sort of aplomb normally expected of the strangely subdued Wayne Rooney, flipping the ball up into the air before volleying home.
Then, 10 minutes from half- time, Carrick popped up again on the right wing and picked out a cross for Ronaldo to nod in.
Rooney, who missed a good chance in the final minute of the first half, was shifted out to the left wing in the second, although he did at one point cut in for a long-range effort that struck the bar. “He needs a goal to give him a bit more confidence,” Ferguson said, ”but I’m not worried at all.”
Rooney’s temperament, however, once again let him down. Denied a free-kick just outside the Villa penalty box, he ran 40 yards downfield, almost knocking over referee Howard Webb en route, before throwing himself into a rash challenge on Milan Baros that brought the inevitable yellow. As former England manager Bobby Robson once said of Paul Gascoigne, he can be as daft as a brush.
The only thing missing for United was a goal from on-loan Henrik Larsson, who was making his Premiership debut, and but for two outstanding saves from Thomas Sorensen, the Swede might easily have scored the first and last. Sorensen brilliantly pushed away Larsson’s early header one-handed and then scrambled across his line to repel a close-range effort late in the game.
With no need to exert themselves too much in the second half, United coasted through, allowing Villa to pull one back through Gabriel Agbonlahor after a superb cross by Baros.
But for all their improvement after the break, Villa never looked capable of making a serious comeback.
TEAM
United:Van der Sar, Neville, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra
Ronaldo, Carrick (O’Shea 80),Scoles; Park (Saha 65), Rooney, Larsson (Solskjaer 80)
Subs: Kuszczak,Giggs
POST SCRIPT
Sir Alex: “This is another one on our list of games. We now have 15 left. We did the sensible things well, like keeping possession at the right time. The good thing is we are creating chances and scoring goals. There was good penitration by us and good passing up front. Henrik Larsson had another marvellous game. His link-up play is fantastic as is his movement. We want to go to Arsenal and get the result we want. That is the only thing we can think about.”
Martin O’Neill: “We were two goals behind before we could think.We were hoping to stay in the game for longer than that, but United are a fine side at the top of their game and we are not. We let them get in rather easily.”
