Manchester United had lost their last two Premier League games (against Liverpool and Fulham) and Liverpool scored an injury time winner against Fulham on Saturday so it was a must win match.
Manchester United were without both Ferdinand and Vidic in central defence so we had Neville and O'Shea filling in there. We were also without Scholes, Rooney, Berbatov, Brown and Anderson who were either suspended or injured.
It was Aston Villa who had the first chance of the game and it came quite early on, luckily we had Fletcher on the goal line to clear Carew's header at goal.
Ronaldo scored the first goal of the game after United had been awarded an indirect freekick because Friedel had no choice but to pick up Milners backpass. The ball was knocked to by Giggs and Ronaldo hit the ball into the back of the net.
The goal came totally out of the blue and against the run of play, Aston Villa had started the better team and this was United's first proper attack at goal. It was obvious to everyone that Neville hadn't played a full game of football for ages and he really struggled against Carew, especially in the first half.
The goal did give United a bit more confidence but Aston Villa still looked dangerous from a counter attack. Villa equalised from a quickly taken corner, Barry hit the ball in from the right and Carew was there to header it into the bottom corner of the goal to pull them back onto level terms.
Manchester United went into half time level with Villa but there were going to be alot more drama in the second half.
58 minutes in and Aston Villa took the lead, Ronaldo lost the ball from an attacking position and a great Villa counter attack got them a goal. Carew crossed the ball into Agbonlahor who headed the ball into the goal.
After that, Nani was taken off and Macheda was brought onto the field to make his first team debut at 17 years of age. There were only around 10 minutes left to play when Ronaldo's low shot went past Friedel and dragged Manchester United back to a level score.
From then on it only really looked like one team was going to grab a winner and that was Manchester United. Fletcher had a great shot saved by Friedel from 12 yards out, Welbeck also had a shot saved by Friedel.
It looked like it was all over and Manchester United had dropped two points, but it wasn't. Macheda had the ball just outside the Villa penalty area, he turned and his shot curled into the top corner of the goal to give Manchester United an incredibly late (4 minutes into 5 of stoppage time) but amazing win.
We didn't deserve a win, Aston Villa played incredibly well and for quite a bit of the match we looked awful and showed that we didn't have that much confidence. We are back at the top of the table with a game in hand still and hopefully this confidence will spur us on until the rest of the season, starting with Porto tomorrow.
