If you could bottle Manchester United you would have a serious concoction on your hands. It would be the kind of potion to rewrite prohibition laws, alcohol legislation worldwide would undergo serious scrutiny and support groups would pop-up like shoots in the spring time.ÂÂ
My name is Mark and I am a Manchester United-aholic. It all started off so simply. Just a few hours every saturday, but before I knew it it I needed more and more. I could be caught sneaking around in the middle of the night to watch highlights reels or leaf through a Pannini sticker album that was cherished above my health. Before I knew it I was logging on before work on a monday morning just to get my United fix. Results like this one are the reason why.
A thousand scriptwriters working for a thousand years could not have written better dialogue for Federico Machedo.  He had the good grace not to fluff his lines. The poor lad will be crushed with comparisons to heroes of yesteryear from here on in but the confidence with which he took that goal (and from now on it shall be known as ‘THAT GOAL”) was utterly astonishing. The swagger of it, the quality, from one so young is what this club is all about. Norman Whiteside-esque in touch (yep, I’m guilty of the comparison stuff too) and he looks to be far stronger than your average teenage whippet as well. The man has a future.
The rest of the match was the kind to keep heart surgeons in business. Villa are a fine side and alas poor Gary was made to look every inch of his 82 years by Little John in the middle for the Villans and some rapier wing work on their left hand side.
But no matter. We have been due a loss against Villa since Nixon was in office and every time this fixture comes up I dread it knowing that the party must end some time. Thankfully not today, and we can swig from the cup of United now with slightly less trepidation than  in the last fortnight. Next up, a round with Porto in Europe. Ye Gods. What will United serve up next?
I’ll keep it brief. We were ridiculously lucky yesterday, and having watched it in a bar with a few Villa fans, I kept my head down because not in a million years did they deserve to lose that match. Yes a great goal from the kid and a potentially title winning game, but we have n ot plaed well in about two months. Poor in the Cup Final, average against Inter and woeful against Liverpool. Lets hope the blip is over but we need Rio and Vidic back ASAP because the momentum is well and truly with Liverpool.
As an aside, I think Nani must have been having some long chats with Berbatov, he was invisible yesterday, and the only time I noticed him on the pitch was when he gave the ball away. Needs to buck his ideas up that lad.
I was there. Here is the garbled match report (errors and all) which I sent to a fellow Crinkley who made it only to his local pub:
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Just got home after an easy journey back, with a stop for a pie and a coffee. Met a few other Reds in the services, all hoarse and all very very relieved!
A real Jekyll & Hyde performance. Abject for much of the game against a well-organised but essentially ordinary Villa side we found our heart in the last 20 minutes (or was it 10, or 15? I lost track of time some time after Villa’s second goal). We were awful at the back, just awful. We do lack a Keano type driver and organiser, forgive me if I am repeating earlier comments, but too few of the team looked like they could really be arsed most of the time. Just as well Berbatov wasn’t playing, Gary would have throttled him. Gary got a huge cheer in the first half when he cut out an Ashley Young sprint down the touchline. He used up all the last of his pace and energy in doing so, and operated on memory for most of the rest of the game. It was worrying how a large clumsy and not hugely talented lump of a centre-forward made their two goals look easy. I doubt Rio and Vidic would have left him so much space.
The spirit shown in the final stages, the previously wholly absent sense of urgency, does actually bode well. A patched up team got the points which a first choice XI might have found easier to bag. Best efforts? Tevez chased everything, Fletch and Carrick sweated away without much effort to find another red shirt to pass to. O’Shea had a reasonable game. Giggsy was effective most of the time and can still skin a man when up against a Villa defender … But Nani and Ronaldo flounced and posed for too much of the game. Evra played well but is not that convincing as a defender, not a trait to be encouraged in a defender in fact! Rather better going forward. VDS was not really at fault for either goal, just left horribly exposed.
What changed the game was Ronaldo’s belated decision to put his mark on it and his 2nd goal rocked Villa, who lacked the ability and self-confidence to hold on to their lead, even less to regain it. The 5 mins was not Fergie dictating to the 4th official (despite Villa moans, I hear) but were all added on for pathetic Villa time-wasting. Serves them right! Villa’s 2nd goal was in fact the turning point. The crowd was simply not prepared to accept another home defeat and cudgeled the team into responding, which of course they finally did. Great stuff in the closing minutes. ”
Fact, as surmised by Judge C and now confirmed: Macheda was born in August 1991, after Giggs’ debut in March that year. So Giggs was playing for the Reds before this Italian Whiteside-lookalike was even born.
The final few minutes of this game were utterly breathtaking. Not because the team suddenly found itself but because the atmosphere just went through the roof. Strangers wept and hugged each other, people jumped and shouted and went hoarse. It was another 1993 Steve Bruce moment. Now we all believed again!! We can do it. We can get that 18th title!!
Today, all sober and calm again, I can look back and see all the cracks in the team but at OT yesterday all we could see was 11 heroes and a sea of red. Did we feel sorry for Villa? Well yes, a tiny bit because they outplayed us. But who cares, in this sort of mood nobody will beat us ever again at OT!! Not without a damn good fight!
I think I need to go and lie down now.
Mattso and Jono,
Thanks you so much for responding to these posts. We are really in the business end of the season now and I feel very far away. Getting your insights is damned important to me because you are both very much on the money.
Allez les rouges!
This is exactly why I am a manchester united fan…yes i have never been to old trafford [its a matter of a thousands of miles from where i live] but to watch it on television wasnt that bad and when martin tyler screamed…machedaaaaaaaaaa! i was jumping up and down and my folks knew what had happened…united had won!
We want that 18th title! Go United!
Cheers all the way from Pakistan
Farrukh