Aston Villa 0-2 Manchester United

Not the best performance, but we are in the hat for the fourth round, so mission accomplished. Although United struggled to get their game together until Rooney came on, at least, most of the blame for this turgid affair must surely be laid at the door of the home team. Alright they got a right going over in the league earlier in the season, but that was possibly United's best performance of the season. So with United minus Rooney, Tevez and Scholes in midfield i was expecting a hard game and for Villa to have a real go at us. As it was they just sat back for almost the entire ninety minutes hoping that they would be able to exploit a set piece from which they seem to have scored a lot recently. But surely, even for that negative tactic to have a chance of working, you have to attempt put some concerted attacking play together.
It is a good job United seem to be a bit jaded and out of sorts after the Christmas period, because a fully fit and fired up United yesterday, would have beaten them even more comprehensively than we had done in the league. As it was United themselves rarely threatened the villa goal in the first half , though we were in such total control there wasn't much to panic about. The only moments to get anybody of their seats was a run from inside his own half that Anderson made about half way through the half, that saw him manage to get a pretty tame shot away at the end of that Carson saved easily. The other chance fell to Giggs just before half time after a shot from Ronaldo was parried by Carson to him just outside the six yard box. Unfortunately it seemed to take him totally by surprise and he never got his feet right and ended up hitting a pretty embarrassing effort the wrong side of the post.
The first twenty minutes of the second half saw a similar pattern of play, United having all the possession and Villa sitting back. The one promising aspect of United early second performance was that they seemed to put their foot on the gas and stepped it up a level. But although we had one or two chances, their wasn't much quality on show. A big part of the problem had been identified by Schmeical at half time, Saha looks a shadow of the player he was. I am beginning to think that his injuries have taken their toll on him. Ever since he got back in the team i have yet to see him run flat out. He used to win most headers outside the box, or at least his fair share, but that part of his game has diminished badly also. That was a big part of his game, putting balls over the top for him to run after, or balls to him for him to control with his back to goal and then release to others running from deep or give it out wide. Sadly we saw almost none of that on Saturday, and Giggs didn't really have a partner to play with. I thought Park looked as if he wasn't really ready for two games in a row. He didn't do anything wrong, he just couldn't get into the game as much as he would have liked. So it was a toss up who went off and park lost as Saha stayed on the pitch when Rooney came on for Park and totally transformed the game.
Straight away there was more pace, more movement, more enthusiasm and most of all more class. The change to 4-3-3 seemed to completely throw Villa as United seemed to have a lot more space all over the pitch for the first time in the match.It was interesting to see Ronaldo's game pick up as soon as Rooney came on, he had been having one of those games where he couldn't seem to beat his man or make the right pass. But as soon as Rooney came on, and the pace picked up he looked a different player. A brilliant interchange of passes between the two almost saw Rooney score after being fed by an inch perfect cross from Ronaldo, but he hit it too well and it blazed over the bar. But a couple of minutes later United took the lead after a neat interchange of passes on the left led to Giggs crossing for Ronaldo to sneak in at the far post and bundle it home. He can't stop scoring even when he doesn't have that great a game this season. Just to complete his almost perfect twenty minutes of action Rooney managed to strike home the second after Ronaldo's shot was blocked and came back to him just at the edge of the box.
The support did themselves proud yesterday, with no inspiration coming from the pitch they made a fair old racket for almost the entire ninety minutes.