United come back to go through

Manchester United 3 Benfica 1

Alex Ferguson’s pre-match observations proved eerily accurate as Manchester United battled back from the brink of humiliation to book their place in the Champions League knockout stages.

Although the Scot predicted his side would get through, he also reflected on their enduring capacity never to achieve anything without first putting their supporters through purgatory.

In this instance, Ferguson had actually been talking about back-to-back defeats to FC Copenhagen and Celtic, which left United in the position of needing to avoid defeat in order to prevent Benfica bundling them out at the group stage for the second successive season.

Yet, as if the Red Devils had not generated enough anxiety already, they also allowed their opponents to grab the opening goal.

After a bit of a false start, Nemanja Vidic levelled right on half-time, providing the platform for Ryan Giggs and Louis Saha to seal victory in the second period.

So, with Celtic losing their final game, United advance into the last 16 as Group F winners, offering a supposedly easier passage into the latter stages, although Spanish giants Barcelona and Real Madrid are potential opponents when the draw is made a week on Friday.

Yet the eventual smooth passage papers over the painful manner in which they went about it.

Something seemed not quite right for United right from the first whistle.

The usual fizz and zip expected on occasions like this was missing. Routine passes went astray, Wayne Rooney, stationed on the right wing, struggled to get involved and Benfica kept their opponents at arm’s length with a degree of comfort.

A capacity crowd sensed all was not well, yet contented themselves in the knowledge United’s defence has largely conquered all the attacks that have tried to breach them this season.

They were suddenly shaken right out of their comfort zone midway through the half as dangerman Simao darted down the right, then picked up Nelson with a cut-back.

The full-back could barely believe the amount of space in front of him, so he took a couple of strides forward before letting fly with a shot which flew into the top left corner, silencing Old Trafford with the exception of the hardy souls in the opposite end of the ground who had travelled from Portugal more in hope than expectation.

For a good while afterwards, the spectre of last year’s nightmare in Lisbon loomed large. Such was United’s anxiety to force their way back into the contest, all semblance of positional awareness seemed to be lost.

At one stage, Patrice Evra darted onto the loose ball after Benfica half-cleared a corner, leaving two visiting attackers behind him, inside their own half, with not a single United player within 10 yards.

All it would have taken was one lofted pass and calamity would have ensued. Instead, once Michael Carrick had pulled off a superb last-ditch tackle to deny Nuno Gomes a shooting chances, United shook themselves down and started to get some cohesion into their attacking play.

Benfica goalkeeper Quim pulled off fine saves to deny Cristiano Ronaldo, twice, and Louis Saha and Ricardo Rocha flung himself in the way of a Rooney piledriver, having already been booked for blatantly tripping the England striker.

At that stage, Rooney’s temper seemed likely to get the better of him.

Booked for complaining at the failure of German referee Herbert Fandel to give a foul in favour of Paul Scholes, Rooney was beating the ground in frustration when Luisao barged him over as the interval approached.

How quickly his despair turned to elation though as Ryan Giggs, doing more than anyone to inject some life into his team, floated over the free-kick, which Vidic climbed to meet and thunder into the net.

It was the third goal of the Serbian’s Red Devils career and, no matter how long he stays at Old Trafford he will have to go some to get a more important one.

Giggs has found the net many more times but the 33-year-old knew exactly how important it was when he guided home a header from Ronaldo’s right-wing cross on the hour.

Suddenly, all the pressure was lifted from a crowd who, like Ferguson in his dugout, had probably spent the previous half hour shredding their fingernails.

Now they were in cruise control and Saha nodded home the third from Darren Fletcher’s corner 14 minutes from time.

There was no end to Rooney’s European goal drought though, as Quim denied the 21-year-old with a fine save at the death.