Paul McGrath column: Aston Villa can take heart from Manchester United defeat

Apr 9 2009 By Paul McGrath

It showed that Shorey is up to the task and after bringing balance to the back four by allowing Luke Young to move to the right, he should keep his place.

Shorey and the rest of his team-mates can consider themselves extremely hard done-by to leave Manchester with nothing.

Villa outclassed the Premier League, European and World club champions at times, but Sir Alex Ferguson’s teams have a knack of overpowering opponents.

If United can pull a kid off the bench for his senior debut and watch him win the game with a wonderstrike like that, then Villa have to realise that it was not meant to be.

But I agree with O’Neill that they can take great encouragement from the performance, if not the result, and can take confidence into Sunday’s game against Everton.

I predicted last week how each of Villa, Everton and Arsenal’s results would go for the rest of the season and called all three correctly at the weekend (perhaps I should have gone to the bookies instead!).

I still believe Arsenal will clinch fourth, with Villa fifth and Everton sixth, but I’m convinced my old club can still keep fighting until the last day of the season.