Valencia 85

Antonio Valencia’s late goal gave Manchester United a deserved victory in Moscow, putting them in complete control of Champions League Group B with nine points out of nine.

Valencia, who only opened his United goalscoring account the previous Saturday, fired home the game’s only goal from a tight angle in the 85^th minute after a Dimitar Berbatov header fell to him on the corner of the six-yard box.

Any pre-match concerns manager Alex Ferguson and his team may have had about the artificial grass pitch at the Luzhniki Stadium were quickly dispelled as the surface played as well any ‘real’ grass pitch in similar conditions.

And United had a near-monopoly of the chances on a night when clear sights of goal were at a premium, especially in the first-half.

The only black spot on the evening was centre-back Rio Ferdinand’s withdrawal through injury just shy of the hour mark.

The United starting line-up contained only four survivors from their Champions League final victory against Chelsea at the same ground seventeen months previously.

And their best chance of the opening period was fashioned by one of those four, Paul Scholes, whose dipping forty-yard drive on 25 minutes was awkwardly pawed away by CSKA Moscow keeper Igor Akinfeev.

Akinfeev made an altogether better save from Nani’s diving header on 59 minutes.

Moments before Valencia’s decisive strike, the Honduran smashed the ball against the crossbar from twenty yards after some terrific inter-passing between himself, Berbatov and Nani, by far and away the best move of the match.

United continued to press after the goal and Anderson was only denied a goal when his left-foot shot from Berbatov’s deft back-heel went inches wide, with Akinfeev beaten.

A satisfied Ferguson said afterwards: “Our passing and our patience was good. We lacked a cutting edge in the first half but we were better in the second half.”