Sir Alex Ferguson made two changes to the side who drew 0-0 with Manchester City midweek. Wes Brown and Javier Hernandez replaced the injured Rafael da Silva and suspended Paul Scholes.
It was a very poor first half for both sides consistently giving the ball away to the other side. United were the better of the two teams during the first half but still had no shots on target. Man United striker Dimitar Berbatov had the best opportunity of the first half. Hernandez put through the Bulgarian through on goal; the striker went on to miss a golden opportunity from eight yards out.
It took half an hour for Aston Villa to test Edwin Van Der Sar in the Man United goal. Gabriel Agbonlahor’s header fell to team-mate Ashley Young, his low strike was saved at the bottom-left corner of the goal by Van Der Sar.
That was followed minutes later by some great play by Luis Nani and Patrice Evra, unfortunately no other Man United player was awake to the situation. United had a free kick from 30 yards out, instead of shooting, Nani rolled the ball to Evra, his ball into the area was wasted because no player attacked the ball.
Aston Villa looked more likely to score at the start of the second half with both James Collins and Agbonlahor hitting the woodwork in a matter of minutes. It was Villa who took a deserved lead after Wes Brown brought down Young in the area, who calmly hammered the ball past Van Der Sar.
With United a goal down, United made two immediate substitutions; Macheda and Gabriel Obertan came on for Hernandez and Berbatov.
Only a minute later Aston Villa had a two-goal lead. United were on the attack, Macheda gave the all away, Villa broke down the other end, Stewart Downing’s brilliant cross was well converted by Marc Albrighton.
It took United to go two goals down before they stepped up a couple of gears and finally looked like possibly scoring. Six minutes after the second Villa goal, substitute Macheda fired the ball past Brad Friedel to give United some hope.
With 85 minutes on the clock Vidic headed Nani’s cross in past Friedel to give the away side a very undeserved point. It was another very poor performance but the comeback could prove to be very important at the end of the season.
Yes i agree this could be pivotal going forward and it was good to see them really rying to fight back at end, still dissapointed with performance and unbeaten so far this season means nothing unless we are top of table. Drawing what 6 games away and only winning 1 is not champions pedigree but having said that not playing well at all and still being there or thereabouts is, a little bit of a conendrum but hopefully with Rooney coming back into the fray and good solid performances from Obertan and co and we could see a very great turnaround and hopefully will land us the title ome May.