This was Manchester United’s seventh Premier League draw of the season and might have offered more ammunition to those who claim the title is Chelsea’s for the taking, but this match demonstrated exactly why it isn’t. Even at two goals down and with 14 minutes to play, United believed they could salvage something. For the young Aston Villa players this refusal to accept defeat was a lesson worth learning and, as their manager, Gérard Houllier, said afterwards, United “showed qualities that should inspire us in the future”.
Barry Bannan, 20, one of the young stars of the show, agreed that there was much he could take from the experience of competing against midfielders like Darren Fletcher and Michael Carrick. “You see how comfortable their two central midfield players are on the ball and how much space they have,” he said. “You are learning and you try and take it into the next game.
The most important lesson he and his Villa team-mates – and indeed anyone ruling out United as title contenders this season – must take from the result, however, is about a special attribute which cannot be taught or learned any other way but through consistently experiencing victory: the eradication of self-doubt.
United beat Wolves last weekend with a goal in the 90th minute and had beaten Mick McCarthy’s side in the Carling Cup in October with another last-minute strike. Javier Hernández scored in the 86th minute against Stoke and Dimitar Berbatov rounded off his hat-trick against Liverpool in the 84th minute.
“It is part of the club’s history,” said Fletcher, who turned the ignition switch by rolling the ball to Federico Macheda to score with nine minutes left.
“It is the mentality of the manager and the players that you are never beaten until the last kick of the ball. We honestly believe if we keep going in the right way until the last minute we will be rewarded. When a manager has a history of doing it, you fall into it. No one gives in at this club. We go on to the end. It’s the United way.”
That might well be the case, but it is worth remembering that were it not for the width of the woodwork, United’s psychological strength would have been made redundant.
James Collins and Gabriel Agbonlahor hit the crossbar and a post respectively in the space of two minutes before Ashley Young outpaced Nemanja Vidic before being bundled to the ground in the area by Wes Brown and Mike Dean awarded the penalty.
Young picked himself up to score from the spot to put his side ahead. Four minutes later, Marc Albrighton’s finish to a stock-in-trade counter-attack started by Bannan, with Young and Stewart Downing the conduits, seemed to have settled the issue.
But Villa should have known all about United’s propensity to launch the proverbial kitchen sink in the final minutes. Evidently their young players did not know or had forgotten.
''It’s almost expected that United score in the final five minutes,” Fletcher said. “That plays a part — when other teams see the [stoppage time] board going up, they know that we are still going to go for it.”
And this match was no different. With their lead reduced to one by a sharp strike from Macheda, who was responsible for snatching United their 3-2 win at Old Trafford two seasons ago, Villa could still have closed out the game. But rather than calmly shutting the door in United’s face by retaining possession and running down time, they tried to match them for aggression.
They were duly punished as, with only five minutes left, Nani curled the ball in with his left foot to the far post and United’s captain Nemanja Vidic dived to head the equaliser.