For reasons best known to themselves, a significant portion of the press chose to use the run-up to this game reporting stories of disharmony, “strained relations” and unrest between Wayne Rooney and Sir Alex. Both before and after games, both parties were at pains to deny any such thing was going on. Rooney himself said that he was still very happy at United and “wants to stay here for years to come”.

I don’t know if there’s any truth in the reports but a day like today shows that, if the press would just be a little patient, there’s absolutely no need whatsoever to report “non stories” because just a few hours on this day provided enough meat to fill the back pages for weeks to come – and, whilst some of it was even more unbelievable than the Rooney story, it was all absolutely true.

Around an hour before kick-off, there was the amazing news that Paul Scholes had answered the SOS call and, not only had he come out of retirement, he was going to be on the bench against City!

At first, I had to check the calendar to make sure that I hadn’t spent a few months in a coma or something and that it wasn’t actually April 1st but when the team sheet was announced, there he was – named as a substitute. Incredible!

That, in itself, can give the press stories to tell for the rest of the season.

And then the actual game began and it was to prove to have talking points aplenty – more than enough to keep idle journalists in articles for the next week and beyond.

First of all, it’s worth mentioning our line-up for this one. Lindegaard was given the nod ahead of De Gea in goal, Jones was switched to right-back, Evra on the left with Rio and Smalling making the central partnership. There was some doubt over Smalling’s fitness coming into the game but he came through the test with flying colours and I believe that the future of one of our central defensive positions could well be sorted for the next ten years.

I felt that Jones might have been used in midfield but Fergie chose to play him at right-back. I think that the Newcastle game exposed his deficiencies in central defence so I was just pleased to not see him played there against the trickier City players such as Silva and Aguero.

Fergie went with a four-man midfield of Nani, Carrick, Giggs and Valencia and I was just pleased to see Valencia on the right. Whilst it has been a case of “needs must”, Valencia is totally wasted in the right-back position. He has been superb on the right wing whenever utilised there this season and this game was no different and it was his run and excellent cross that led to our first goal.

Up front, Fergie went with Rooney and Welbeck. I’m afraid that I completely over-looked Welbeck in my pre-match article and I went with Hernandez but the Rooney/Welbeck partnership is actually probably our best at the moment. Hernandez may well be the best poacher we have at the club but there are areas he could improve on – namely his first touch and ball control but these are two things that Danny Welbeck has no issues with and he was able to demonstrate this to great effect on numerous occasions this afternoon.

Oh, and he can score, too. I was raving about Demba Ba’s goal against us in midweek but Welbeck’s goal here this afternoon was similar in some respects but, technically, it was probably even better as the ball was going away from goal (and Welbeck) but he showed tremendous technique and agility to put it away.

Anyway. The match itself started with City having plenty of the ball and put us under some pressure in the opening exchanges and in some ways, it was similar to the game we played against them at Old Trafford but in reverse. In that game, we were pretty dominant for the opening twenty minutes and City’s first goal came largely against the run of play. On this occasion, it was perhaps our goal that was against the run of play as Rooney headed brilliantly from Valencia’s cross to put us 1-0 ahead after just ten minutes to stun the home crowd.

Just a couple of minutes later, City were in turmoil as Kompany was shown a red card for a two footed challenge on Nani.

At first, I thought it was extremely harsh and, in some ways, I was disappointed because I would have preferred to have beaten City with eleven men – City down to ten men with eighty minutes still to play provided City with every excuse they would have needed no matter what score this one had ended. However, after seeing several replays, the red card was deserved. Kompany went in two footed with studs up. It was reckless, it was dangerous and, had Nani not been able to take evasive action, he would undoubtedly have had to leave the field with a nasty injury.

Basically, players know that this type of tackle is no longer allowed and so why such an excellent player as Kompany chose to attempt it is quite baffling.

At this point, we had City where we wanted them and drove home our advantage thanks largely to great work from Welbeck with his goal that I’ve already mentioned and a run he made into the box which drew another foul and a penalty. Rooney took the penalty but, whilst it was saved, Rooney nodded home the rebound to make it 3-0 with five minutes of the first half remaining.

At this point, the United support were chanting “we want seven!” and it really didn’t seem beyond us at that point. City were like a boxer who has been hit and whose legs have gone. As the boxer tries to hold on desperately until the bell, City seemed to want to hold on for the half-time whistle.

When it arrived, most people were wondering what the hell would happen in the second half. Would City come out fighting or would they accept that today wasn’t to be their day and go for damage limitation.

A couple of substitutes from Mancini during the break suggested the latter to me as he brought off Johnson (who had been giving Evra a pretty torrid time on our left flank) and Silva (who remains one of their most potent attacking forces) in exchange for Zabaleta and Savic.

Now, I don’t presume to know what Fergie said at half-time to our own players but, no matter who or where we are playing, we should not be throwing a 3-0 half-time lead away and so I guess that part of the message was that whilst we could still get more goals from the game, the highest priority, especially for the opening five or ten minutes of the second half, had to be to give nothing away. Give City no encouragement. Keep the ball. Pass the ball.

So, when Nani tried some kind of stupid back-heeled flick after just a couple of minutes of the restart which was easily intercepted by Richards who drove towards our box, putting Evra under such pressure that he eventually conceded a free-kick just outside the area, Fergie must have been livid.

Up stepped the lethal set-piece specialist Kolorov to unleash an excellent free-kick to make it 3-1 with just three minutes played of the second half.

Again, I don’t presume to know Fergie’s thoughts but the fact that Nani was subbed within ten minutes of this came as no surprise (although the reason could just have been that Nani had picked up a silly yellow card by this stage and with the referee – Chris Foy – having his usual game i.e. poor and baffling, it might have just been a decision made to protect Nani from picking up a second yellow).

The substitution resulted in a sight no Manchester United supporter ever thought they would see again as Paul Scholes trotted onto the  pitch.

The substitution was probably made with thoughts of retaining possession in mind and, for the most part, Scholes’ passing was of the highest quality (97% pass completion ratio, apparently) but, incredibly, it was a bad pass by Scholes which led to City’s second goal.

As Aguero slotted home their second on the rebound after Lindegaard had spilled his initial shot, all eyes went to the clock which confirmed that the score was indeed 3-2 and that there was still the best part of half an hour still to be played.

Whatever advantage we had enjoyed going into the half-time break had now been completely reversed. The momentum was now with City and I must admit that I felt it inevitable that they would score the equaliser.

However, it never came, despite us enduring some extremely anxious moments towards the end of the game (no more so than when Kolorov had another free kick from a similar position to the one which resulted in their first goal right at the death but on this occasion, Lindegaard saved it well).

And so the final whistle blew to bring the curtain down on a fantastically entertaining Cup-tie which saw United fans, as per usual, put through the wringer when we should have been sitting with our feet up, smoking cigars for the final ten minutes.

The drama wasn’t to end there though as a few hours later, the draw for the fourth round was made and, somewhat predictably, we were drawn away against Liverpool. But that’s a story for another day… right now, I need a lie down.

I jokingly referred to the 5-0 defeat we suffered at the hands of Newcastle all those years ago in my pre-match write-up but this one was, in many ways, a very similar game.

The match was not as one-sided as the scoreline would suggest (don’t get me wrong, Newcastle were better and thoroughly deserved their win) but so much of what we tried to do failed by small margins whilst Newcastle could hardly do no wrong.

Their first two goals in this game were as stunning as anything scored in that 5-0 win (and there were some beauties in that game, too) and were good enough to win any game.

Demba Ba is looking like the signing of the century as Alan Pardew got him on a free-transfer (I believe most clubs were wary of taking a chance on him because of his injury record) but I don’t think you’d be able to sign him for less than £30million at the moment and his opener is already a contender for goal of the month, if not the whole season.

Their second, scored from a superb free-kick by Cabaye was as good as any free-kick you’ll see and it was no fluke – I seem to remember him scoring an almost identical free-kick in another of Newcastle’s games earlier in the season.

Their third… well… the least said about that the better. Phil Jones made an absolute mess as he tried to head back to Lindegaard (despite the ball being about two feet off the ground) but the keeper had already positioned himself to scoop up the ball so Jones’ header merely bobbled into our own net.

For our own part, Berbatov saw a header deflected onto the post early on and then another Rooney shot from point-blank-range late on was cleared off the line and I cannot really remember much more from us than that.

What was noticable about this one was how much harder Newcastle were working, especially in the midfield areas, as they harried and hassled us into making mistakes with our passing and just generally made us look like we were doing everything at half-speed. Worryingly, Newcastle just generally looked “hungrier” than we did and that’s not something you’d have been able to say many times over the last ten years or so.

There must be a reason for it but I was also surprised that Rafael wasn’t given then right-back slot in order to allow Valencia (who has been excellent in recent games) the right-wing but Fergie opted to put Valencia in the right-back slot and Nani and Park on the wings.

All in all, whilst Fergie is urging everyone not to panic, this was a pretty disastrous result and coming on the back of the Blackburn defeat, it cannot really be described as a “blip” – especially when taken into context with our early Champions League exit – trying to pretend that all is rosy at Manchester United smacks of ostrich-like behaviour.

However, if anyone can pull this round, Fergie can. He’s done it before and I have every confidence that he’ll do it again.

Once again, Fergie had no choice but to ring the changes for this one as Phil Jones either failed to recover from the facial injury received in the last game or he was just rested as a matter of course but Michael Carrick, who has been in peak form of late in the middle of the park was brought back into central defence – and continued to show that he’s not too shabby in there either.

To be fair, United largely dominated this match and our defence had very little to do so it was a good time to have defensive problems, I suppose.

Park put us 1-0 ahead after just around eight minutes and a cricket score looked likely but the score remained that way until almost half time when Wigan had a player sent off and Berbatov got the first of three goals just moments later.

In the second half, Berba grabbed himself another with an excellent turn and shot (the kind of thing we all saw him doing for Spurs all the time a few years ago), the excellent Valencia scored a screamer into the bottom corner and Berbatov was able to seal his hat-trick and make it a 5-0 romp with a late penalty.

In fairness, Wigan should not have found themselves down to ten men – the sending off was extremely harsh (I’m sure Wigan could appeal the decision successfully). It also should not have been a penalty towards the end of the game – Park was clearly tripped outside the box but that probably balanced out an earlier penalty appeal when I thought Hernandez was clearly tripped around the twenty minute mark only for the ref to wave it away.

However, we were streets ahead of Wigan today and I do think that we would have won the game even without the decisions going our way. We were supposed to be the team with the defensive crisis but Wigan appeared very open at the back at times and with players like Rooney, Hernandez, Berbatov, Macheda, Nani, Park, Valencia and Giggs ploughing into them, it was always going to be just a matter of time before we got the breakthroughs.

The good news was to get even better after this one as Manchester City were held to a highly unusual (for them) 0-0 draw against West Brom which meant that we finished the day level on points and even that goal difference which at one point looked unassailable (and growing) is now down to just five – not bad considering the injury list we have been carrying almost from the first day of the season.

Incidentally, the injury list took another addition during this game as Jonny Evans limped off with a leg injury which is likely to see him sidelined for a couple of weeks or so and it looks vital that we get Rio and/or Jones back in time for the next game or we’re going to be playing with a defensive line-up of midfielders again.

For now though, the good times are back with us. Everyone is scoring goals. Everyone is reaching peak form (I thought Evra, who has been quick to “talk the talk” a lot of late, was finally seen “walking the walk” in this game and he was excellent) and we still had the chance to give young Zeke Fryers a run-out for the second half here – and again, he had a solid game.

Fergie said before the games kicked off today that City were favourites and he’s been saying for the last week or two that he’d be happy if we’re thereabouts come the New Year.

Mind games? Probably. They seem to be working though and City who probably felt that they would be over the hill and far away by now are suddenly feeling the pressure of leading from the front, it seems and Fergie will continue to turn the screw from here til May.

Well, I got this one wrong but on occasions such as this, I don’t mind too much.

Fergie did make a few changes but not really what I’d expected. Rio was rested so Jones pulled back into the centre-back position with Giggs taking Jones’ place in the midfield. Lindegaard came in for De Gea. Basically, the changes weren’t particularly drastic and I think it showed in yet another very impressive performance, particularly in the first half where Fulham barely got a sniff of the ball and found themselves 3-0 down by the time the half-time whistle blew.

In the second half, Fulham finally came alive and put us under some pressure but couldn’t grab a goal despite a few close efforts and eventually, they ran out of steam which allowed us to grab another couple late on to make the scoreline so emphatic.

However, yet again, victory came at a cost. Phil Jones went off in the first half after getting a knock in the face – the seriousness of which has yet to be revealed but some reports are suggesting it could be a fractured cheekbone which could mean 4-6 weeks on the sidelines. If that is the case then it shows what a tough nut he is because he did actually play on for a while (and made a great tackle in his own box to deny Fulham a decent chance after the clash) but it was clear he was still suffering the effects and had to make way for Ashley Young to come on.

This meant that Smalling went into the centre, Valencia took the right-back slot and Young went to the right of midfield.

However, Young himself got involved in a collision which meant that he had to limp off and make way for Park and early reports suggest he will be out for 2-3 weeks.

I don’t quite know what we’ve done to deserve all of this bad luck with injuries but it is now getting beyond ridiculous and during this period where fixtures come thick and fast, we can scarcely afford to have so many players out injured. However, whilst these words might come back to bite me, I think we have been a little fortunate with the fixture list in that we seem to be playing a lot of teams that are towards the foot of the table and our next two matches are against Wigan and Blackburn – two teams currently in the relegation zone.

In any case, we keep up the pressure on City at the top and have even started to make a little bit of inroads into the goal difference and this probably bodes well for when the pendulum of luck swings our way.

Fergie did something that has become increasingly rare for this one and kept the same line-up that played so well against Wolves in our last match and any doubts that that might have been a one-off were quickly erased as we tore into QPR from the off and went ahead through Wayne Rooney after just around 54 seconds.

With it being vital that we took the three points here, it could have become “one of those games” had we not taken the early lead as the pressure on us would have mounted but that early gift allowed us to relax a little although it could be argued that we may have relaxed a little too much as the first half ended 1-0 to us when it really could and probably should have been more like 3-0.

Fortunately, Carrick, clearly playing with a lot more confidence of late, went on a ridiculous run from the halfway line just ten minutes into the second half and slotted home neatly. Carrick has come in for a bit of stick down the years for being too negative and I did say in my last review that I expected him to provide the defensive cover so that Jones could get forward but there was nothing negative about his run and shot here and it was great to see. If anything, he was probably helped by his reputation for being a bit negative and goal-shy (this was his first since February 2010) as everyone expected him to pass towards Rooney who had taken a decent position in the area and this did seem to wrong-foot Cerny a bit who had started to move towards Rooney, leaving the gap to his right which Carrick found.

That’s not to say that Jones didn’t bomb forward on occasion and one time in the first half, he was played clean through by Rooney with only the keeper to beat but a mixture of a good save from Cerny and perhaps Jones showing why he isn’t a centre-forward saw his efforts thwarted.

Welbeck did manage to put the ball in the net but it was ruled offside although replays showed that he was probably level and the goal could well have stood.

Valencia has looked back to his best in recent games and he was fantastic again in this match and was only denied the goal his all-round performance deserved by another super-save from Cerny.

Jonny Evans, who has never scored for United, really should have broken his duck with a free-header directly in front of goal with Cerny totally out of position but he could only manage to hit the crossbar from a few yards out.

Rio Ferdinand had one of his best games for quite some time with a commanding performance in the centre of defence and, if he can keep it up, then we might not miss Vidic quite as much as we all fear.

Another bit of good news was the return of Chicharito who came on for Welbeck after an hour. I didn’t realise that he had recovered from his recent injury but clearly he is and will likely take Welbeck’s place when we take on Fulham on Wednesday evening.

Again, like against Wolves, I think we do have to keep things in perspective about the quality of opponent we were dealing with here and the number of chances we failed to put away but this was quite possibly our best all-round performance of the season.

It would probably be an over-statement to suggest that this win made up for the midweek disappointment but it was a great start.

After our early season scoring spree which came at the expense of looking vulnerable at the back in every game until we eventually got found out in the 6-1 mauling by City, we have looked a lot tighter in defence but this came at the expense of goals at the other end.

A balance needed to be found and I think we found it in this match. Clean sheets are great but give me a 3-1 or a 4-1 any day of the week.

The team looked nicely balanced for this one, especially in midfield and I think that what we saw today could well be our best set-up. Nani took the left, Valencia took the right and Carrick and Jones took the centre.

Nani hasn’t been hitting the heights of early season recently but he looked back to his best in this one, grabbed himself two goals and looked a constant threat all afternoon. Valencia played really positively and looked a lot more like his old self. However, the midfield pairing of Carrick and Jones is still relatively untried but it does make a lot of sense.

Carrick comes in for some stick from many United fans and I think that his confidence has perhaps been hit at times during his United career but when in this kind of form, he can produce some fantastic passes and is arguably our best defensive midfielder.

Jones is supposed to be a defender but his attacking instincts are there for all to see and we might just have found that reliable, all-action box-to-box midfielder we haven’t really had since Keane (hey, some people have been comparing him to Duncan Edwards – I think I’m ok to compare him to Keane!). I just think the two balanced each other out very well in this match but, with all due respect to Wolves, perhaps tougher opposition will provide the acid test.

Defensively, it was as expected with Rio and Evans taking the centre and it has to be hoped that Rio can now put a string of appearances together without succumbing to injury because that could well be our partnership for the season now Vidic is unavailable. Smalling and Evra took the full-back positions and did what they had to do (which was mostly just get the ball to Valencia and, perhaps more so, Nani as soon as possible).

Up-front, Fergie went with Rooney and Welbeck and clearly, this is one area of the pitch that still has to be decided upon but with so many of our strikers injured at the moment, Fergie’s decision was probably made for him here.

There will obviously be changes as the season progresses but I just hope that from here on in, the changes will be fewer – perhaps two or at most three per game and that this general line-up is what we see more of.

In any case, if this heralds the start of another goal-spree for Nani and Rooney then the future of the season looks a lot more promising than it did last Wednesday night. Let’s hope we can keep it up.

To be quite honest, there’s not an awful lot to report about this rather dull game and the day will be remembered as the day the club sprung a massive surprise by renaming the North Stand to the Sir Alex Ferguson Stand. That we scraped past Sunderland thanks to a Wes Brown own goal (good to know he’s still doing the business for us, by the way!) was almost incidental.

Yes, today was all about Sir Alex Ferguson and he did say after the game that he thought that the players were playing with added anxiety because they really wanted to win for him.

There was one funny moment in the second half when the linesman gave a penalty against us only for the referee to go over to him, have a word, and the decision was overturned to a free-kick for us. To be fair, replays showed that it wasn’t a penalty but there were a couple of hands flying around as the ball flew over the penalty area but it did have an air of the referee saying to his linesman, “United are supposed to win today, this is Fergie’s 25th Anniversary, we can’t spoil the party”.

We did improve in the second half and only some excellent saves from Westwood, the Sunderland keeper, kept us down to just the one goal but Sunderland rarely threatened and Fergie will no doubt have been pleased at yet another clean sheet – our fourth in a row since the City debacle.

The day belonged to Fergie though and he was clearly as shocked as anyone when he saw the covers removed to show the North Stand renamed. It was also announced that a Philip Jackson (the guy who sculpted the Sir Matt and Holy Trinity statues outside Old Trafford) statue of Sir Alex has been commissioned to sculpt a statue of Sir Alex and I can’t wait to see that – the one of Sir Matt is quite breathtaking.

Anyway, for now, we go into another International break and it’s two weeks until we play our next match – away to Swansea which could be a toughie – Swansea are doing well at home.

Well, Fergie sprang yet another breathtaking surprise with his line-up for this one. There were no great shakes at the back with De Gea, Jones, Ferdinand, Evans and Fabio (the omission of Evra was interesting) and 75% of the midfield was quite normal – Nani, Anderson and Valencia but stuck right in the middle there was Wayne Rooney.

Rooney the midfielder? Is this a vision of the future or was Fergie just having a little experiment? I don’t know but it worked… kind of.

Up front, we had Berbatova and Owen to complete a team which looked to have plenty of goal threat about it and I was quite confident that my view that we could win this one 3-0 or even 4-0 would prove correct.

When Valencia put us 1-0 ahead after just eight minutes, I was even more confident.

However, we seemed to play well within ourselves having got that 1-0 lead and with Rooney doing his best to be Paul Scholes, gone were the penetrating runs as he instead chose to ping passes around – some of which were mere passes back to the defence or even the goalkeeper.

I think I mentioned in a recent post that perhaps there was a feeling of… I don’t know… boredom (???) with some of these group stage matches amongst our more experienced players. It’s as though they just don’t get their juices flowing anymore.

When the draw was made for this Champions League group stage, I think we all were quite happy that we had been handed as easy a draw as we could reasonably expect but, in some ways, it might have actually been better had we been handed a draw similar to the one Manchester City have had.

It was noticable that some of our best players on the night were the younger ones who haven’t had as much Champions League experience. Jones and Fabio provided plenty of dynamism on the flanks and it was a Jones run and cross which actually led to our first goal. Fabio ventured forward on several occasions but was often thwarted by the Galati defender Costin (who had a great game ) but he was at least trying to drive the team on to greater heights when several seemed happy to just plonk around the field for the remaining eighty minutes following our opener.

As the minutes ticked by and we continued to fail to get our second goal, the Galati team seemed to grow in confidence and belief that they could perhaps pull off something of a shock in this one and De Gea had to be alert on several occasions and no more so than when a shot on target was deflected by Ferdinand but he still managed to adjust his hand and knock it away.

In fact, De Gea’s performance was a big positive from this match. He pulled off a few saves by actually catching the ball solidly on several occasions (as opposed to punching it out or something) and his distribution was usually excellent. Already the bloopers from his opening couple of games seem a long time ago now.

Again though, we were largely fortunate that we were playing against a side that struggles to score at the best of times. If Galati had their own Chicharito or someone of that ilk then they could well have given us all kinds of problems.

Anyway, as the match wore on with the score still 1-0, there was always the hope that we would finally grab that second that would put the match safe and it finally arrived after around 81 minutes when Rooney had a blast from outside the box which looked to be going well wide before it hit Sarghi leaving their goalkeeper completely wrong-footed and helpless as the ball hit the back of the net.

So, despite barely seeming to get out of second gear in this Group Stage, we now find ourselves top of the group thanks to our slightly superior goal difference over Benfica (who we play next, by the way) and on the one hand, I suppose we should be pleased with that as this is the object of the Group Stage, after all.

I just can’t escape the feeling that some people aren’t taking this early stage of the competition very seriously though. Rooney… a deep-lying midfielder?

Playing a game just 48 hours after your last is not something is normally welcomed but for most United fans, this match couldn’t come quickly enough. A different day, a different competition, a different challenge.

It was also, obviously, quite a different team than the one that went down against Manchester City at the weekend.

Ben Amos was given a chance in goal and did superbly well. The defensive line-up was Fabio on the right, Vidic and Jones in the centre and young Fryers was given the chance to build on his fantastic display in our first game against Leeds but this time played over on the left and, as far as I could see, didn’t put a foot wrong again all evening.

Seeing Vidic get through a full 90 minutes was great but, as usual, he sailed close to the wind on occasion and picked up a booking for a messy foul with the game barely a few minutes old – he probably needed this 90 minutes and it cast some light on why he wasn’t selected for the game against City at the weekend.

The midfield was something along the lines of Diouf on the left, Valencia on the right with Park and Cleverly in the middle.

Cleverley managed to get in an hour on this is comeback from injury so that was a welcome sight and Park put in a typically hard-working performance and added some composure to the midfield.

Up front, we had Owen and Berbatov and these two – Berba, in particular, did their causes no harm whatsoever with fine displays.

Anyway, the game itself was probably as you would expect, United dominating possession throughout and piling the pressure on Aldershot from the off. As already mentioned, Berba had a great game and really did look like he had a point to prove. He often gets accused of being lazy (or at least, looking a bit disinterested at times) but that criticism couldn’t be leveled at him in this game – he was everywhere and he thoroughly deserved his goal to open the scoring after fifteen minutes and then played a fantastic assist for Owen to grab our second just before half-time.

However, there was one moment later in the game which perhaps sums Berba up. He went on a fantastic run almost from one box to the other, showing great strength and determination to get himself into a position where a goal looked likely only to slip it wide with an almost nonchalant effort. It could be that he was just knackered after such a lung-bursting run or it could just have been Berba being Berba –   it’s hard to decide but it is moments such as those that divide people’s opinion of him to such an extent.

However, for a guy who has almost become a forgotten man this season, he showed great character in this game and did as much as anyone else on the pitch.

The goal of the match, however, was our third which came just after half-time from Antonio Valencia. With the ball at his feet, hovering a few yards outside the penalty area, everyone expected him to try to pick out a pass or perhaps attempt to go back down the outside but he stunned everyone by unleashing a terrific swerving drive that beat the Aldershot keeper all over the place. It was so good and so unusual that even Antonio himself broke into a smile.

Whilst we always looked in control here, Aldershot had one or two chances of their own, especially towards the end of the match when Fergie started to make his changes (Michael Keane on for Fryers, Paul Pogba on for Cleverly, Ravel Morrison on for Diouf) and we perhaps started to take our foot off the gas but the timing of our second and third goals (just before and after half time) had knocked most of the stuffing out of the Aldershot players who were just looking for a souvenir of the occasion by the end of the game.

And so we go through to the Fifth Round, another 3-0 victory with plenty of the youngsters getting their chance to shine.

We are, of course, now getting towards the stage of the competition where getting drawn against tougher opposition is inevitable but I hope that Fergie will give these lads another chance if the draw is kind to us again when it is drawn this Saturday.

It’s taken me a few days to get around to writing this review for obvious reasons because I do always like to watch at least one replay of the matches before writing the reviews but I wasn’t in such a great rush to watch this one over again.

However, I watched the match over and it wasn’t actually the painful experience I’d expected. For the opening 10-20 minutes, it was all Manchester United and we had City penned into their own half for much of it with something in the region of 70% possession.

When Ballotelli put City ahead after 22 minutes it was a complete stunner because, up until that point, they’d hardly had the ball.

It must be said though that whilst we had a lot of the ball, we didn’t do an awful lot with it. City were very organised defensively and throughout the match, Joe Hart had very little to do – and this was our main problem in the first half.

However, 1-0 down at half-time was gutting but there was absolutely nothing to suggest the massacre that was to follow and I think most United fans, whilst knowing that the next goal would be crucial, had confidence that we could turn things round.

Whatever Fergie said to the players at half-time was obviously brief and to the point as the players were back out on the pitch and ready to go several minutes before the second half was ready to commence.

But within about a minute of the restart, Evans made a mistake against Ballotelli and tugged at his arm in an attempt to salvage the situation, the referee copped him and had no choice but to send him off for preventing a clear goalscoring opportunity. Whatever plans Fergie had put in place for the second half were destroyed right there in one moment of madness. It was always going to be a uphill task in the second half but that just made it almost impossible.

It has to be said though that for ten minutes or so, we continued to give as good as we got and had Ashley Young not fluffed a great opportunity when he received the ball in the box and scored then we still might have seen a different outcome here because that could have made it 1-1 and perhaps at that stage we could have played a much more defensive game and settled for the point.

It did sort of show that we still weren’t out of the game though and the players tried to do the only thing they knew they could do and get that goal back as soon as possible. This obviously meant that we were vulnerable at the back and with a man short, City were able to exploit the wide open spaces and this ultimately led to our downfall as City have such great passers of the ball that they were able to do so quite easily.

It does show the fine margins between success and enormous failure at this level though. We needed that little bit of luck or that little bit of magic to make it 1-1 but instead we got hit by a sucker punch as Ballotelli got his second on the hour mark to make it 2-0.

At this stage, the game was pretty much up but with half an hour to go there was still plenty of football to be played and so the United players once again tried to do what comes naturally and attack. Ten minutes later, Aguero got City’s third and then it really was game over.

In hindsight, what the players did next was either the craziest of the most courageous thing ever seen but they kept ploughing forward leaving enormous holes at the back but they wanted the goal, they still believed that they could pull this off and when Fletcher curled in a beauty (the best goal of the game, to be honest – unfortunately quantity, not quality always counts in this game) to make it 3-1 with at least ten minutes still to play.

In hindsight, this was perhaps the worst thing that could have happened because it suddenly seemed to make the players think, “Hang on, if can grab one more in the next few minutes then City’s heads might be all over the place for the last few minutes – we can still do this!” and so they went for it.

We had a couple of corners in the next few minutes which City defended well but it did show that again, with a decent delivery and a bit of luck, there was still a goal to be had for us and the players just went for it with everything they had. All the defenders were coming forward and players like Welbeck ended up chasing back doing the jobs of players like Evra! It was just kami-kaze football.

However, I feel that I must take issue with something Fergie said after the match about this stage of the game as he seemed to be suggesting that when it was 3-1/4-1, we should have just accepted that and just defended in order to avoid what ended up a rout.

I can possibly understand it once it went to 4-1 but at 3-1, there definitely was a whiff of a comeback – it was a faint scent; mere tendrils on the horizon  but it was there and I, for one, want to see my United team never accept defeat when we need two goals in ten minutes although I will accept that with hindsight, once City went 4-1 ahead, the chance had gone and with just injury time to be played, we should have just kept the ball and played down the clock.

Instead, we continued to try to fight, like a boxer who has been knocked to the canvas four times in a round but keeps getting up on wobbly legs, swinging away feebly only to walk onto yet another right hook.

So, yes, this could and probably should have ended in a 4-1 defeat and not 6-1 but, the record books aside, does it really matter? Fergie made a point about the damage this result did to our goal difference column (ten goals in one match is a devastating blow) but, at this stage, the five points behind is the crucial part. I do tend to agree though that the players should have shut up shop at 4-1 and they probably should have known that.

However, I can also understand how the players would perhaps not know what to do. Do they make the decision to do that, at Old Trafford, against our fierce local rivals by themselves? Why wasn’t Fergie or at least Phelan down on the touchline at this stage, just telling them, “It’s ok lads. Give this one up. Just don’t let them make this completely embarrassing now”? At least the players would have known that they had the manager’s blessing to give up the ghost.

I dunno. I just thought it strange that whilst Mancini was always making his way down to the touchline at various stages to bark out a few instructions, our own management team stayed in their seats throughout. Fergie just seemed a bit too eager to shift the blame onto the players but I think that in hindsight, he must see that he shares some responsibility for the end result.

Anyway, the day definitely belonged to City but I would reiterate that it wasn’t the one-sided massacre that the end scoreline suggests. The first half was definitely an even contest but City always just looked that bit more in control. Defensively they were solid and organised and they contained us to the point where we were restricted to half chances at best. They also worked extremely hard down the wings to nullify Young and Nani and little David Silva was awesome. Their strikers were obviously on the money too.

For us, our defence looked extremely creaky as it has done for much of the season and I still cannot understand why Evans started ahead of Vidic and I can only think that Fergie felt that Vidic was still short of match-fitness. This is probably a moot point though because I have no doubt that Vidic would have pulled on someone’s arm at some stage and got himself sent off just as Evans did!

I said in a recent post that I think Fergie has to come to some sort of decision with the defence and soon because all this swapping and changing is not doing anyone any favours. Ferdinand still brings a lot to the table but he clearly cannot do it in every game these days which means that Fergie has to make at least one change every other game or so but he will know as well as anybody that our success down the years has been built on a stable defensive unit that pretty much play together week in and week out where changes are enforced due to injuries and suspensions – not merely to “keep players happy/match fit” etc.