United play it safe

A breakaway European league, sufficient unto itself, would have reduced the Premier League to a mere cipher. The threat will finally disappear this week if the clubs give their backing to UEFA's proposed expansion of the Champions League, but it is still hard to avoid the feeling that beneath the Premiership's feet the earth is about to tremble.

Saturday's match at Villa Park may, worryingly, have been the shape of things to come. It was billed as a climactic confrontation between the team that had led the league for three months, Aston Villa, and a side poised to knock them off the top, Manchester United. New pretenders against seasoned contenders, how could the occasion fail?

The reality was that as summits go this match was about as intoxicating as high tea with buttered scones, satisfying up to a point but hardly a feast of footballing fervour. And one of the reasons for the lowness of the key in which much of the game was pitched had to be the fact that on Wednesday United are playing Bayern Munich in a decisive Champions League fixture.

Make no mistake, Alex Ferguson wanted to win at Villa Park. He fielded the side which will almost certainly start against Bayern and his team scented victory after Paul Scholes had given them the lead at the start of the second half, but once Julian Joachim had scored for Aston Villa prudence prevailed.

Yet, even if one accepted the replacement of Andy Cole by Nicky Butt as a logical move to prevent Alan Thompson, Ian Taylor and Lee Hendrie sweeping Villa to victory, the lasting impression of United was of a team with one eye on the tachometer, checking the revs.

United's performance was as patient and possessive as it will need to be on Wednesday night and to that extent this was a useful rehearsal. The Premiership should not be a backstage drama but since the new Champions League will involve teams playing up to 17 matches it may well become one, particularly during the two group phases.

While Ferguson could afford to give Ryan Giggs, newly recovered from a hamstring injury, some match practice in the second half and at the same time rest Jesper Blomqvist, John Gregory had no serious alternatives as potential match-winners.

Suspension following collywobbles had again deprived Villa of the maverick talents of Stan Collymore but the absence of Paul Merson with a back injury was more fundamental to their failure to exploit a growing territorial superiority in the latter part of the match. While Jaap Stam had an excellent game against Dion Dublin the quality of Merson's crosses would surely have given the Manchester United centre-back a more testing afternoon.

Stam found it harder to cope with the speed and industry of Julian Joachim but again it needed the subtlety of angle which Merson brings to his passes to make the advantage tell. As it was Joachim, despite his three goals in two games as Collymore's stand-in, is essentially a worker bee without a regular sting. Several times his poor first touch let him down in scoring situations.

The goal Joachim did get was a slick piece of opportunism which punished Stam and Gary Neville for their failure to close the striker down after Dublin's chest had laid the ball off some 20 yards from goal. Even then Peter Schmeichel would probably have saved Joachim's shot had it not taken a steep deflection off Denis Irwin.

Until then Schmeichel had had little to do and when Scholes opened the second half by scoring through the legs of Michael Oakes, the Villa goalkeeper having palmed out an excellent low centre from Cole, a change of Premiership leader beckoned. But Joachim's equaliser revitalised Aston Villa.

Aston Villa: Oakes, Wright, Southgate, Ehiogu, Watson, Taylor, Thompson, Joachim, Dublin, Barry, Hendrie. Subs Not Used: Grayson, Ferraresi, Vassell, Lescott, Rachel. Booked: Ehiogu. Goals: Joachim 55.

Manchester United: Schmeichel, Neville, Irwin, Stam, Beckham, Cole (Butt 70), Blomqvist (Giggs 45), Keane, Scholes, Yorke, Brown. Subs Not Used: Johnsen, Sheringham, Van Der Gouw. Booked: Neville, Yorke, Irwin. Goals: Scholes 47.

Referee: M Riley (Leeds).