VIEW: United vs Villa (Carling Cup Final). 2-1

Good.

We won the Carling Cup in a weekend that also saw us gain pace on Chelsea...even though we played in a different competition. Surely the perfect weekend?

Also, again not entirely a reference to yesterdays game, but I just had to mention it:

Bad.

Looking away from the result for a second, I was a tad pissed off for 2 reasons. Firstly was of course the non-stop barrage of shit that has emerged because Vidic remained on the field after his challenge on Agbonlahor that conceded the penalty. Where as most cynics - including the miserable likes of Alan Green and Mark Lawrenson - claimed that the ref had got it completely wrong to consequently imply that United cheated their way to victory with pathetic comments such as 'yeh but who knows what could've happened' that completely overlook the fact that we were vastly superior for the majority of the game in the ATTACKING third of the field (Vidic is a defender by the way); others with reason saw it differently. Graham Poll, an expert in the field regardless of how much of a twat you think he is, has stated the technical reasons as to why a sending off was not necessarily a formality that simply bypassed Dowd.

Secondly, after a shocking amount of scepticism and suggestion that Ferguson had finally gone senile towards the news that Rooney was benched, we in fact drew level through an awesome goal that was a direct result of that tactic decision; Berbatov (via Dunne's interception) setting up Owen for the equaliser. Then Owen gets subbed off through injury only to obviously be replaced by you-know-who. Yes, he scored the winner and YES he is brilliant; but instead of praising our resilience and general integrity to win the trophy after falling a goal behind, we were immediately and rather boringly deemed a 'one man side'.




But either way, it shouldn't matter. Because all that does matter is that the reds have marched on. Yet again. 




In the face of the Glazer's, the noise, the colours and the general mood was hostile in an effective way. However rather than the kicking they were promised, today the Galzers realised (as if they hadn't already) what Manchester United were all about: unity, passion and above all, winning things. And that is the United way.