THE one man to miss Manchester United's infamous players party sparked fresh Christmas celebrations at Old Trafford as Cristiano Ronaldo's nerveless late penalty ended Everton's stubborn resistance.
Ronaldo was busy collecting third place in FIFA's world player of the year awards in Zurich as his team-mates made the headlines for all the wrong reasons at Monday's ill-advised gathering.
And the Portugal winger showed exactly why he is rated so highly, sending Tim Howard the wrong way two minutes from time to convert his 16th goal of the season after Steven Pienaar had tripped Ryan Giggs.
Although the South African protested his innocence, manager David Moyes could only bury his head in his hands as a moment of total stupidity cost his team a Barclays Premier League point their defiant efforts fully deserved.
Moyes must have known there was no way Ronaldo would miss in such high-pressure circumstances and the 22-year-old gleefully fired home to ensured United closed the gap on leaders Arsenal to a single point.
Although it had been 15 years since Everton last won at Old Trafford, the visitors' 11 victories on a current unbeaten run of 13 matches gave them every reason to approach their latest expedition down the East Lancs Road with confidence, even without star man Mikel Arteta, who pulled out through illness.
Hope
Their hopes would have been raised even further when they scanned a United line-up lacking three senior figures in Edwin van der Sar, Rio Ferdinand and Owen Hargreaves.
Ferdinand - organiser of Monday's shameful proceedings - and Hargreaves are expected to be back in action against Sunderland on Boxing Day, and both were missed as United struggled to cope with Everton's forceful approach.
Not that David Moyes' men were on their own in dishing out the rough stuff. Nemanja Vidic caught Ayegbeni Yakubu in the ribs with one early challenge and four names were in referee Howard Webb's notebook before the contest was 15 minutes old.
Wayne Rooney was first on the list, for a wicked tackle on Tim Cahill and given the way the former Everton hero responded to a perceived stamp by Lee Carsley later in the half, it is a good job Webb did not take Ferguson's pre-match call for more red cards too literally.
Other than one effort, saved at close range by United old-boy Tim Howard, Rooney was a muted force and, not for the first time, it took a moment of brilliance from Ronaldo to break the deadlock.
There appeared little on for the Portugal winger when he collected Carlos Tevez's square pass but, having stepped inside Carsley's poor challenge, he let fly with a superb shot which dipped and swerved beyond Howard.
It was tough luck on Everton, who had been at least United's equals. However, it took them only five minutes to level as Pienaar exposed some hesitancy on the part of rookie defender Danny Simpson and picked out Cahill with an excellent far-post cross which invited the headed finish.
Although they succeeded in cramping United's style, the Merseysiders were not the first to find that keeping Ferguson's range of attacking players totally quiet is virtually impossible.
Volley
Joleon Lescott nodded Rooney's disguised far-post chip off the line, then Ronaldo skimmed the bar with an acrobatic volley as an unmarked Tevez waited behind.
The half-time introduction of John O'Shea for Simpson had little effect on the contest as Everton's central defensive pair Joseph Yobo and Phil Jagielka continued to patrol their penalty area in excellent fashion, knowing Howard was in determined mood behind them.
Howard's powers of concentration were questioned by Ferguson during his time at Old Trafford but the American's agility has never been in doubt, and after one low stop to deny Tevez, he stood firm to beat away an Anderson piledriver.
It was the sum total of United's threat until Rooney strode onto Ronaldo's short free-kick and blasted a shot which flicked off the crossbar.
The introduction of Louis Saha at least gave the hosts an aerial threat but a draw looked certain until Pienaar stuck out his back leg for Giggs to trip over, giving Ronaldo the opportunity to claim the win.
United 2 Everton 1
December 23, 2007
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Extremely grateful for the win, but a bit worrying after watching Arsenal yesterday. For the last half hour we simply played the long ball game. Ronaldo was amazing, he played like a true winger today. But now I'm convinced we need a big man on the pitch, Saha, Berbatov - whoever . to get the ball and hold it, and let play build around him. Carrick didnt impress today.
A very tight and nervy game, which could have slipped us up. Not at our best at all and it was very stop-start stuff. We had some major letdowns today. Danny Simpson can be forgiven as he is only young and was his first Premier League start. We were very weak on the right and were suscepitble to attack, and Everton always attacked from there. O'Shea should have started anyway, in a game which was bound to be tough; as Everton were their usual scrappy, dogged sevles doing everything possible to slow the game down and halt United's free flowing football game. Carrick was not at his best yet again and the sooner we have Hargreaves back, the better. His distribution was poor, and he couldn't dictate the play. Anderson also didnt have one of his better games (despite having a rare shot on target), and I think he is more suited to partnering Hargreaves than Carrick. Giggs, besides giving us a penalty was also dire. He looked jaded, tired and very leggy. Nani should have started off as he would have given us more energy and pace which we certainly lacked on the left hand side in the game.
We also missed the calm presence of Ferdinand, and the amount of set pieces we gave away in dangerous places was also unbelievable. On another day, had a player like Arteta been fit, we would have been punished.
On a more positive note, Ronaldo is now the League's top scorer, lets hope this rich vein of form continues.
All in all this was not one of our better displays, lets hope we do a lot, lot better away to Sunderland on Boxing day. Our next two opponents are Derby and Sunderland away, we should not underestimate them but we should be getting 6/6 points easily. Meanwhile Arsenal have got Aston Villa at home and Everton away. If Everton play the same way as they did with us, barring any injuries, I feel we should be on top of the league come the New Year.
Up the Reds!
Some of the United players played as though they had already had their Sunday Roast.
This was always going to be a tough game especially leaving out Fedinand.
I thought Everton defended pretty well but we just about deserved the win after coming close a few times through Rooney and Ronaldo.
You can't play at full throtle every week. Arsenal won yesterday but did not play well. Spurs could have sunk them in the space of 10 minutes when Keane missed a sitter and then a penalty either side of Berbatov's goal.
Berbatov's goal - goal of the season.
why have we given a new contract to john oshea if he cant even come in for a game like this?. so the question is are we giving contracts to players cuz s.a.f likes them?!! also carrick is not good enough for this club and with simpson? well we seem to have an ideal replacment for brown when he leaves! not only he looks like him he also plays like him!!. we need cover for our deffence and also a striker.
Simpson should have been taken off after 15 mins, in fact he shouldn`t have even started. And I don`t see him making the grade on this performance, take the money and run!
That was a relief!
I had the feeling we were going to give two pts away!
We were not on our game, and looked clueless at too often.
It showed at times today that we miss Scholes!
Not enough width too often and that really is what we missed, as that creatres more chances!
Well done to them, they worked tirelessly and with Pienaar they had a bit of class!
Glad that we got the points eventually!
Hope that we are sharper for the trip to the NE!!
Up The Reds
To be honest if Ferdinand was to be rested??? ,not against Everton.The Toffees are playing well, and their lack of control in front of goal was a flaw in an otherwise good performance.
Ronaldo was superb .Anderson, another great performance.Where was Hargreaves too?The points were secured however ,and there are other teams having some fortune .Arsenal against Spurs maybe?
I love how the Man U "faithful" on this website keep moaning the fact that we "need" new players.
For one, we seem to be in dire need of a bigger target man. Oh right, didn't we sell one of those a little while ago... somebody by the name of RvN. So that would mean we didnt have any target men last season either. So surely we couldn't have scored more goals than any other premiership team last season then. I mean, we didn't have any target men. Oh wait a second... we did top the charts.
I almost forgot... Carrick is supposed to be utter crap as well isnt he? Oh right then there's always Fletcher, O'Shea, Simpson, Brown... and Giggs too, people are saying he's rubbish these days with age. Let's not forget, Ronaldo is too selfish, Saha is made of glass and Rooney has too much of temper.
I wonder how we're doing pretty well on all fronts then - it must be luck eh?
Take home message: stop moaning all the damn time and just enjoy supporting the team for a change. You'll take a lot more joy out of it.
Considering no Scholes and
Hargreaves this was a terrific win for United, even
though our midfield hardly
kept the ball, or created
much at all. Can't blame
Anderson, he's young and inconsistency rules with those less experienced.
Carrick has to impose himself
better, he was just what we
needed last season but this year I don't see him playing
much if Scholes and Hargreaves are healthy.
O'shea definately improved
the play down our right once
he came on. Not our best game, but, against such an inform side as Everton we showed why we are the best
in the Prem, forging out a win when we might not have been the best side over 90 mins. Where's Timmy Howard
when we need him, never should have sold such a great
goalie, he's be starting now over VDS has we kept him.
Excellant 3 points on nice
defending by all.
Up the Reds,
Always thought this was going to be a tough one, and it was.Overall our play wasn't all bad, well after the 1st 20 minutes or so, and after Everton scored they retreated for a draw and never really threatened after that, although as we have seen with so many teams at OT, they put up a solid wall, and we had trouble getting through.Ronnie;'s overall game was terrific, I'm especially pleased with his defensive efforts this season. He was very good doing that today, and was a constant threat going forward. Someone (Riquelhmo?) said Giggs was dire, now I'm not a huge Giggs fan, but I thought he had a very good game today (though admittedly, for a change).I also didn't think Carrick was that bad either, not great, but steady and calm. Vidic was terrific, Brown plays much better in central defence, and Evra was again classy. Simpson needs more experience, he'll be fine as time goes by. Did we deserve to win, on balance, yes I thnk we did.Couple of tricky games at Sunderland, and West Ham. Both tough places for us to win in the past, but I think we'll be OK come New Year. 3 points. Merry Xmas everyone.
manuxpert, Carrick not good enough for this club? C'mon mate that's taking it a bit far I mean he was a major part in winning us the title last season but he's been rubbish lately.
As for Hargreaves, he's always injured and was rubbish against Bolton.
Huddlestone is looking like a possibility in Jan. Everyone says Veloso but I don't think he's that good.
As for the sriking dep., well Anelka has a bad reputation, Huntelaar scores for fun in a defensively bad league, so what about Fred from Lyon? Or even a cheeky go at Eto'o or Drogba? (about as likely as City winning something though).
By the way, as for Monday's "disgrace", the British papers have done what they always do. The TV news was painstakingly careful not to link any United players to it, they left that for the papers.
And a lot of City fans think that the papers are anti-City and pro-United.
All they ever do is blame the media for City winning nowt.
Their manager's too gutless to say much (and isn't really in a position to in this country) so they do it for him.
Ronnie's right about winning at home, but we want to be doing it in far better style than this rubbish. It was seriously like watching Chelsea at times, if we concede some goals then we concede some goals, but let's play some friggin' super-fast, super-skilful entertaining football that's engaging to watch.
Esp. against middle-lower Prem league and lesser Euro clubs at home. I would've thought actually that was a given, but apparently not with Quieroz.
Very poor day for Kuszczak, Simpson, O'Shea, and Carrick, and even Vidic was not up to his usual standard. We missed Rio, but even without him, I wonder if Ferguson will be thinking he needs to reinforce the back line after that performance. As poorly as we played, we were fortunate to come away with 3 points. Well done Ronaldo.
Hurry back EVS, Neville, Hargreaves and Scholes.
a big disappointment awaits
Was @ the game yesterday & my view was, the ref was bias, never let united get into their flow.
Our incomplete passing game is going to trip us up, o'sheas first two kicks went straight to everton players, but it ant just him is it!.
Vidic did miss rio, but was still strong enough & held it well.
If this was a school report it would end with...
SAF'S United, must try harder, concentrate harder & complete basic passing skills on the park...
Thought it was very generous of Fergie to give Everton a twelfth player after half time, did one off O'Sheas passes actually ever reach a United player?
Kitkat was shocking, fingers crossed Foster gets back sooner rather than later!