MIXED FORTUNES FOR UNITED
(Images taken from BBC.co.uk)
Now in the fifth round of the FA Cup as well as the Carling Cup final, it was time for United to get back to Premiership business.
First up was a disasterous trip to Ewood Park. Despite United running the show to start with it was Blackburn's Derek Bentley who opened the scoring. Saha equalised only for Bentley to put Rovers back ahead and teammate Lucas Neil to stick a penalty in before half time. Bentley completed his hattrick early in the second half and though the Ruud boy scored twice to bring the score back to a respectable seeming 4-3, Rio getting sent off capped a lesson from United in how not to defend.
So it was back to Old Trafford to face Fulham and though the defence may still have been iffy at point, the attacker's efforts made up for it this time out. Park and Ronaldo put us 2-0 up before Brian McBride pulled one back for Fulham. Saha made it 3-1 against his former club, Heidar Helguson pulled it back to 3-2 before half time. Finally late on, Ronaldo finished the visitors off to put United back on track(ish)
These results leave United fifteen points behind Chelsea but importantly, six ahead of the Scousers.
North of the border it was the Scottish Cup 4th round and Aberdeen had to deal with a visit to Tyncastle to face title chasers Hearts and got booted out due to goals from Michel Pospisil, Calum Elliot and Steven Pressley. Diamond getting himself sent off for the Dons can't have helped either.
Elsewhere the only real game of note was Hibs beating Rangers 3-0 at Ibrox through goals from Garry O'Connor, Ivan Sproule and Christopher Killen.
In the CIS Insurance Cup semifinals, Celtic overturned Motherwell's early opener from Richie Foran at Fir Park with goals from Marcei Zurawski and Paul Maloney to reach the final of the competition where they'll face Dunfirmline.
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