34 and counting…

That’s the number of trophies won by Manchester United under the stewardship of Sir Alex Ferguson. Yesterday’s Carling Cup victory against Aston Villa shows that SAF isn’t finished yet, despite all the doom mongers predicting the demise of Utd following Ronaldo’s departure. It was a great day at Wembley with Graham Tomlin and my first visit to the stadium since the rebuild. The afternoon kicked off with an excellent meal in the Bobby Moore club before taking our well positioned seats three rows back above the players entrance with a fantastic view of the pitch and the team benches. To be fair the Villa supporters were making the most noise pre-match, but then they don’t get to a final that often.

The start of the game was a disaster with Utd’s defender Vidic giving away a penalty within five minutes and Villa scoring from the spot. Vidic was lucky to stay on the pitch and one of the advantages of our seats was being able to see the Villa manager‘s reaction to the lack of a red card. A few minutes later and great relief as little Mickey Owen, granted a rare start, slotted the ball home to equalise. Sadly Owen didn’t last the half and hobbled off with a hamstring injury to be replaced by Wayne Rooney. It was Rooney who settled the game fifteen minutes from the end with a perfect header from Valencia’s cross and a few minutes later he hit the post with another header. A desperate last few minutes of all out attack from Villa before the final whistle and another cup for the Old Trafford trophy cabinet. Cue the celebrations.

For those who moan that Utd should have been reduced to ten men early on, it is worth remembering that Utd played Villa a few weeks ago a man down for an hour and still drew. Villa played well but Utd dominated as the game developed, particularly in midfield, and once Rooney came on there was only likely to be one winner. As the song says, The Reds go marching on, on, on!