United 3 Aston Villa 1

United continued their unbeaten start, in the Premier League, with an emphatic win over Aston Villa, thereby maintaining the gap at the top of the table between them and the chasing pack.

Sir Alex resorted to a far stronger starting eleven for the visit of Aston Villa with both the scorers at the St Mary`s Stadium, relegated to the bench with Rooney and Berbatov starting. Ferdinand shook of his latest injury and Giggs was also restored to the starting eleven.

Team - Van der Sar, O`Shea, Ferdinand, Vidic, Evra Nani, Fletcher, Carrick, Giggs, Berbatov, Rooney

Subs - Lindegaard, Owen, Anderson, Smalling, Hernandez, Scholes, Fabio

First HalfUnited got off to a fantastic start with Wayne Rooney ending his goal drought, from open play, with only fifty seconds of the match played. Van der Sar launched a long ball, Rooney controlled it, took a couple of touches before smashing it past Freidel in the Villa goal.

United 1 Villa 0 (Rooney - 1 minute)

The United faithful thought they should have had a penalty when Nani went down under a challenge from Dunne but Chris Foy was having none of it. United continued to look the better side and Nani tested Freidel with a shot the keeper had to palm away.

Freidel was then forced to save an effort from Giggs as the pressure mounted. Giggs then set Evra free after a teasing run but once again Freidel did enough to deny United a second goal. As half time approached Berbatov headed over when he might have done better but United did increase their lead on the stroke of half time when Rooney tapped home from close range from a Nani cross.

United 2 Villa 0 (Rooney - 45 minutes)

Half Time - United 2 Villa 0

Comfortable at half time, United had to make a fight of it again when Bent reduced the arrears just before the hour mark, finishing off neatly a slide-rule pass from Downing.

United 2 Villa 1 (Bent - 58 minutes)

Thankfully the two goal margin was soon restored again when Vidic scored a fantastic goal driving home a shot after an assist from Rooney.

United 3 Villa 1 (Vidic - 63 minutes)

Villa refused to give up though and Young went close hitting the cross bar with Van der Sar clutching at thin air. Freidel deprived Rooney of a hat-trick producing a top draw save to pushing away the strikers` effort.

Full Time - United 3 Villa 1

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