The Hindu : Sport / Football : United cruises; Everton shocked

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United cruises; Everton shocked

BIRMINGHAM: Manchester United cruised into the FA Cup football fourth round as Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney sealed a 2-0 victory against Aston Villa in front of new England coach Fabio Capello.

Meanwhile, Oldham produced a huge shock with a 1-0 win away to Everton and Chelsea beat Queens Park Rangers thanks to a fortunate own-goal when Claudio Pizarro’s shot hit the post and rebounded off Rangers’s goalkeeper Lee Camp in the 28th minute at Stamford Bridge.

Capello arrived in London on Saturday to start work at Soho Square two days early and made the journey with FA Chief Executive, Brian Barwick, for his first official scouting engagement at Villa Park.

He will have left wishing Ronaldo, the outstanding player on view, was English and not Portuguese, but glad that Rooney’s 20-minute cameo as a substitute brought the England striker his 11th goal of the season.

Ronaldo’s 19th goal of the campaign ensured that Sir Alex Ferguson made it 22 consecutive FA Cup third round ties without defeat before Rooney confirmed victory to condemn Villa to a fourth FA Cup defeat to United in six years.

If first impressions count for anything, from the nine Englishmen on display, Capello will have found it difficult not to be impressed with Gabriel Agbonlahor, the young Villa striker, who seems ready to make the step up from the under-21 level.

Searing pace

With Rooney, still suffering from a virus, left on the substitutes bench, the stage was cleared for Agbonlahor as the only English striker on view and his searing pace was a constant threat to Rio Ferdinand.

Yet Ferdinand was equally impressive in combating the threat of the 21-year-old and gave the kind of authoritative display that could persuade Capello to hand him the England captain’s armband when he names his first side.

This was the second season running the two clubs were paired together and Villa certainly had the odds heavily stacked against it, having lost nine of its previous 11 Cup meetings with United.

Villa Park is a huge favourite with Ferguson; not surprisingly given the fact that the visitor had won its previous 10 games at the stadium and Ryan Giggs should have ensured that sequence would be extended before half-time.

The Welsh international had already wasted one difficult opportunity, heading over Patrice Evra’s cross at the near post, but there were no excuses for the United captain less than two minutes before half-time.

Scott Carson will have done his England selection prospects few favours with the way he failed to hold Ronaldo’s diagonal shot across his area, but at least he was reprieved when Giggs’s inexplicably was unable to tap the rebound into an empty net from seven yards.

Glorious pass

Ronaldo set up Rooney with a glorious pass into the area, but the England international forced his shot high over the cross bar as he surged into the area to meet the chance.

Villa had not beaten United since last winning the FA Cup in 1957 and that miserable sequence was extended nine minutes from the final whistle.

There was an air of inevitability about the man who broke the deadlock.

Instead of creating opportunities, Ronaldo had one supplied for him when Giggs managed to squirm a cross into the six-yard box.

Even then there seemed little danger, but as Dutch defender Wilfred Bouma hesitated, Ronaldo slid in to force the ball beyond Carson.

That was the signal for Villa to collapse and moments later Rooney was the benefactor from more excellent work by Ronaldo as the Portuguese’s shot was blocked by Gareth Barry.

Rooney took full advantage, firing un-erringly past Carson to complete Villa’s misery.

The results:

FA Cup third round: Aston Villa 0 lost to Manchester United 2 (Cristiano Ronaldo 81, Wayne Rooney 89); Blackburn 1 (David Bentley 85) lost to Coventry 4 (Michael Mifsud 34, 90, Elliott Ward 64-pen, Dele Adebola 83); Bolton 0 lost to Sheffield United 1 (David Carney 42).

Bristol City 1 (Liam Fontaine 18) lost to Middlesbrough 2 (Stewart Downing 37, David Wheater 72); Chelsea 1 (Lee Camp 28-og) bt Queens Park Rangers 0; Everton 0 lost to Oldham 1 (Gary McDonald 45); Huddersfield 2 (Luke Beckett 4, Chris Brandon 81) bt Birmingham City 1 (Garry O’Connor 19).

Ipswich 0 lost to Portsmouth 1 (David Nugent 51); Sunderland 0 lost to Wigan 3 (Paul Scharner 19, Paul McShane 56-og, David Cotterill 76); Tottenham 2 (Dimitar Berbatov 28, 50-pen) drew with Reading 2 (Stephen Hunt 25, 78). — Agencies

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