The Red Devils win the first of three possible trophies

Sir Alex Ferguson masterminded a 1-2 victory over Aston Villa, which saw him with the 34th trophy of his illustrious managerial career with Manchester United. It could have been differently, however, if Nemanja Vidic had been sent off for fouling Gabriel Agbonlahor in the penalty area.

Luckily, Phil Dowd decided not to book Vidic, but awarded the penalty, which the outstanding James Milner duly converted. Conceding an early goal gave United incentive to take the game to Villa and the Red Devils equalized shortly after through some good hustling from Dimitar Berbatov and a superb finish from Michael Owen.

Owen was unfortunate to get injured towards the end of the first half and Wayne Rooney came on from the substitute bench. A one-two combination between Berbatov and Valencia saw the Ecuadorian player break into the box at pace and provided a beautiful cross for the white Pele to head home.

Villa played well and create some chances, but failed to score and United ran out deserved winners.

Some observations from the match:

• Rooney’s goal marked his 7th headed goal from his last 8.
• Vidic was not sent off, because the referee felt Agbonalahor was heading away from goal. Indeed the Villain had lost control of the ball slightly and had to slow down his pace and alter his direction to regain posession, meaning he was not running towards goal when Vidic fouled him.
• While we did create several chances and did enjoy good possession, the 4-4-2 tactic employed yesterday doesn’t look as solid Fergie’s preferred 4-5-1. A central midfield pairing from yesteryear of Keane and Scholes would allow 4-4-2 to work well at the moment, but Fletcher + anyone else at the moment, simply doesn’t provide enough solidity in midfield for this tactic to work.
• Berbatov has been starting to hustle. In the match against West Ham and yesterday, he started to chase loose balls, hustle the opposing player who had the ball, bust a gut to try and get on the end of a tap-in. It’s nice to finally see that.
• His scuffed shot was horrible though and still shows that he still is too slack in certain areas
• Berbatov, Valencia and Rooney are starting to link up well and have a good understanding of where they are on the pitch and how they time their runs.
• Rafael still has much to learn. He gives opposing players way too much space to run and hogs the ball too long. He tries to be cute when he should just hoof the ball away, thus putting himself and his team mates under pressure. His injury was a result of this ball-hogging. He waited too long to kick the ball away and the Villa player closed down the ball which ricocheted away and Rafel injured himself trying to win it back. Silly boy.
• It was still good to see Rafael rather composed in most situations during a cup final though.

Here are some video clips from the match:

Extended highlights:

Post Match interview with Wayne Rooney:

Post Match interview with Gary Neville:

Post Match interview with Sir Alex Ferguson:

Scenes after the final whistle:

http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/4904863/