Aston Villa 0 - 3 United

DDG

Rafael Jones Evans Evra

Valencia Cleverley Giggs(Young) Januzaj(Fletcher)

Rooney(Zaha) Welbeck 

After those couple of dreadful performances vs Newcastle and Everton, it was good to see United play football in such a free flowing way. The effort put in by our players was a joy to witness and most of them had a very good game. Two players who graduated from our academy won the match for us. At the end it was three goals scored but in reality it could have easily been five or six. Villa were dreadful after conceding the first goal.

Welbeck scored our first two goals after some fine work by Valencia, Rafael and Januzaj. The movement by Welbeck was first class. We threatened to score more but were let down by some of the finishing. Welbeck could have notched four and Roo should have had at least a goal to his name. The missed chances were not rued though as Cleverley put the game beyond Villa's reach with a third goal during the second half. Cleverley has been the butt of a lot of criticism during the past months and rightly so. His performance today was probably the best I've seen him play in quite a while. While I know that Villa's midfield isn't cut from the same mould as Chelsea's or City's, it was good to see Tom excel today. He'll probably revert to his mediocre form whenever we face a better team but I'll keep on hoping he'll someday reach the potential he showed a couple of years ago.

All players did well but two men stood out today; Welbeck and Valencia were outstanding. Welbeck scored two and created chances for his team mates after some decent flicks. His movement and awareness were excellent. With RVP missing due to injury, it's Welbeck's chance to shine. I've said time and again that I think he's a very good football player. He often works wonders to get himself in decent positions and then hesitates when inside the box. That either results in him fluffing very good chances or goes for the wrong option. That's an area Welbeck should really work on, if he masters that, then we'll have an excellent young English footballer who'd give his limb for the team he has supported throughout his childhood. 

What about Valencia? Brilliant. He was a constant menace down the right and Villa could barely get near him. His partnership with Rafael worked a treat today as our Brazilian looks like he's getting back to last year's form. More of the same please!

I'm delighted. I feel we can get on a good run as we've got some winnable games coming up. We're playing West Ham, Hull, Norwich, Swansea and Tottenham in our next PL games. While this year's form has taught me not to make any predictions, I still expect to get at least 4 wins from those games. The league may be out of our reach but we need to get into the top 4 position so we cannot lose any more games, especially given the fact that the teams in front of us aren't dropping many points. Meanwhile, Stoke await us in the QF of the Capital One cup. Winning that trophy would be great for Moyes, perhaps a much needed confidence boost. So let's go for it. Come on United!

P.S. Welcome back Darren Fletcher!