Manchester United drop points in thriller

Manchester United’s title ambitions took a blow on Sunday as they dropped points in a 4-4 thriller with Everton at Old Trafford.

Nikica Jelavic had opened the scoring for the visitors before Wayne Rooney, Danny Welbeck and Nani all scored to give the champions a dominant lead on the hour mark.

Despite Marouane Fellaini pulling one back for the Toffees, Rooney’s second looked to have secured victory for the hosts.

However, two goals from Jelavic and Steven Pienaar in quick succession in the last ten minutes saw David Moyes’ men leave with a point.

Sir Alex Ferguson knows that his side’s fate will rest around their fixture against rivals Manchester City next week, and was disappointed with his team’s defending.

“We have given them initiative, there is no doubt about that,” he told Sky Sports.

“It makes the game at the Etihad a real decider. We have made it hard for ourselves, as we normally do, but we will go there knowing that we are capable of getting a result.

“We need to get a result now at the Etihad and there is no reason why we can’t do that. There has been an expectancy from City that this could be their decider, but it is our decider too.

“There will be a reaction. It’s big a game next Monday against City. It is always a derby game of the highest proportions and this won’t be any different.

“I thought it was an absolute give-away. We just had to see the game out. Some of our football was fantastic, some of the goals we scored were great goals. To give away four goals at Old Trafford, in a home game, we can’t believe it.

“It was defensive lapses. I think their goals were soft. We have created goals by really good football, but I think they got their goals easy,” the Scot bemoaned.

United’s lead at the top is now down to three points with three games left to play.

By Gareth McKnight

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