It was not easy. It was not pretty. But Manchester United did manage to defeat Sporting Lisbon thanks to Christiano Ronaldo's free kick in the penultimate game of the group phase of the Champions league. This result ensures that United will top their group, allowing Sir Alex Ferguson to rest his star players in the game against Roma.

I thought United would come out firing all cylinders in order to get back to winning ways after the defeat at Bolton, but instead it was Sporting who completely dominated the first half. They took a deserved lead when Abel's ambitious shot went in at the near post. Whenever Kusczak has been asked to play, he has always given steady performances but he was at fault for this goal.

In the second half, Sir Alex brought on Tevez and Giggs for the ineffective duo of Nani and Fletcher and this changed the game to a great degree. United equalised when Ronaldo's shot was turned in by Tevez, and continued to look dangerous afterwards but they did not get any further reward for their efforts. It looked like the game was going to end into a draw when deep into stoppage time, Anderson was fouled and Ronaldo scored from the resulting free kick. It was all over for Sporting.

Ronaldo takes free kick in an unusual way. He does not try to bend the ball with the inside of his foot. Instead, he puts his foot accross the ball, hitting it with his laces. He is the number one choice for taking United's free-kicks,but usually he just hits them into the wall or miles above the goal,leaving fans banging their heads in frustration.But this time he got it absolutely right.This free kick had everything-pace,curl,did,swerve.It was simply unstoppable. Let's see if Ronaldo is more accurate from from free-kicks from now on.

To sum it up,it was nowhere near a vintage United perfomafance, but a great result nevertheless. Moving on, United can now fully concentrate on the Premiership for a month. They will need to improve their performance if they are to get another winning-run going.Rooney's return against Fulham on Monday ought to help them achieve this.


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