By Ryan Ghee
December 18 2005

Aston Villa's four match unbeaten run was brought to an abrupt end by Manchester United as goals from Ruud Van Nistelrooy and Wayne Rooney gave the visitors all three points. Ruud Van Nistelrooy opened the scoring for the visitors just ten minutes into the game and, early on in the second half, Wayne Rooney doubled the United tally and wrapped up the win for Alex Ferguson's second placed side.

With David O'Leary employing the negative tactic of playing with a lone striker, Manchester United were always going have control over proceedings and just seven minutes in, Sung-Ji Park came within inches of opening his United account as his low shot hit the post before deflecting to safety.

With Villa on the back foot following the early scare, Darren Fletcher slid a pin-point ball through to the prolific Van Nistelrooy and with just Sorensen to beat, the Dutchman cooly handed the visitors a tenth minute lead.

The game continued to be one-way traffic for much of the first half as Ryan Giggs and Wayne Rooney wasted good chances before Van Nistelrooy almost created a moment of pure genius from just inside the Villa box.

The striker flicked up a pass from the effective Darren Fletcher before firing an acrobatic bicycle kick towards Sorensen's goal but was only denied by the fingertips of the Villa stopper.

With half time approaching, the hosts finally created a chance of their own when Steven Davis, who is currently discussing a new deal at Villa Park, fired in a shot from 20-yards but the effort flew well wide as Villa's frustration started to grow.

With the Villans 1-0 down at the interval, O'Leary decided to change to a 4-4-2 with Juan Pablo Angel joining Milan Baros upfront and James Milner the player to be sacrificed.

However, the change failed to make any difference to O'Leary's fortunes as just five minutes into the half, Wayne Rooney raced on to Park's through ball before firing the ball past the helpless Sorensen via the foot of the left-hand post.

Minutes later, Ryan Giggs should have made it 3-0 to United but the Wales international wasted Rooney's lay-off as he fired over the bar from eight yard out.

With two-thirds of the game gone, the Villans finally started to make their presence felt as Gareth Barry came agonisingly close to halving the deficit.

The midfielder did well to control his half volley on the turn but, with van der Sar reduced to spectator, his shot trickled wide and the visitors' two goal lead remained intact.

With Villa setting their sights on the most unlikely of comebacks, Milan Baros came even closer to finding the net but his shot from Angel's delivery rattled the bar and flew to safety as Villa's final chance of the match disappeared.

With just minutes separating Manchester United from another vital three points, Ruud Van Nistelrooy had two great chances to extend the lead but the first chance was desperately blocked on the line by Liam Ridgewell and the second, just a minute later, flew wide after some dazzling footwork from Cristiano Ronaldo.

Speaking after his side's first defeat in five Premiership games, David O'Leary summed up the match in just one sentence: "We were outclassed by a team with world-class players."