Manchester United 3 Aston Villa 1: The result doesn't tell the full story

Yes we lost and yes the result doesn't sound nice but it wasn't that bad - at times we looked quite good and we held on to the ball really quite well.

But it was a defeat and we have to pick ourselves up move forward. We have to learn from last night and forget about it all at the same time and I think Houllier will be good at drilling that home.

We were undone by a Wayne Rooney goal after a minute after a long clearance from Edwin van der Sar bounced perfectly for him to volley past Friedel. After that, literally seconds into the game, we were chasing it and that is never a good place to be when playing Manchester United.

We got one back, courtesy of Darren Bent when we were two down and for a moment I had hope, but United got another and the battle was just too much.

Post-mortem coming, but please, if you can, vote for your man of the match while we prepare it.

Man of the Match