From The Times:
'Those who like to portray the Barclays Premiership as a stagnant league in which everyone knows their place (and stays there) are not short of statistical evidence, but had they attended the siege of Selhurst Park on Saturday, they would have been invited to keep their gloomy outlook to themselves.
This was no classic. In fact, for 60 minutes it was numbingly ordinary, but it became a half-hour epic of "valour, desire, commitment and trust", in the words of Iain Dowie, the Crystal Palace manager. It also raised the tantalising question: can a Manchester United team that failed to break down the ten men of Palace breach the defensive might of AC Milan tomorrow to reach the quarter-finals of the European Cup?
The tentative answer has to be "yes", despite obvious evidence to the contrary. For one thing, Sir Alex Ferguson and his players will set off for the San Siro today knowing that their season rests on their ability to overturn a 1-0 deficit. By the time they return to the championship race, Chelsea should be uncatchable, with an 11-point lead.
That should concentrate the mind and it would be helpful if it focused the thoughts of Wayne Rooney, who impressed and infuriated in equal measure against Palace. He was United’s best player, even though he appeared for only 17 minutes. He was also a belligerent pest who was the first to charge up to the referee at the final whistle, kicking the ball away in a teenage strop, even though he had been booked for dissent.
A United fan recently suggested that Graham Poll did Rooney no favours when, at Highbury last month, the official declined to send off the forward for a torrent of invective. Ferguson must hope that, when the short, sharp, shock of a red card arrives — as it surely must — it is not at a critical moment in an important match.
In every other regard, Rooney was a teenage tearaway to admire. His manager had talked on Friday as though the forward was playing too well to drop and, had he started against Palace, it is unthinkable that United would have been reduced to such frantic attacks towards the end.'