Congratulations to Villa winger Ashley Young on being named the PFA Young Player of the Year.

It was a richly deserved accolade for a young man with the world at his feet.

WHAT was once Villa's best season since Ron Saunders and the league title, then their best since Graham Taylor and Ron Atkinson's charge towards second, then their best since Brian Little's fourth and fifth, is now quite simply their best for 12 months.

A year ago Villa were sat where they are now: 55 points from 34 matches, although they were then back in seventh.

They were a team chasing another, Portsmouth, who were in the Cup Final.

Now they are in fifth trying to keep the door shut on another Cup Final team - Everton.

DESPAIR, anguish, dejection, desperation, despondency, ­disheartenment, forlornness, gloom, melancholy, misery, pain and sorrow.

They were not the names of the 12 Villa players on duty at Old Trafford yesterday, but they may well have been.

The ghost of Peter Withe 1983 was close to finally being exorcised.

On Merseyside, Villa deserved every bit of their defeat and players will have been embarrassed.

Aston Villa almost turned back the clock by coming as close as they have done in 26 years to winning at Old Trafford in a stirring performance which proved a point even though it agonisingly failed to yield one.

Ultimately time was on Manchester United's side as a late, late winner in a pulsating five-goal encounter returned Sir Alex Ferguson's title hopefuls to the top of the table and left Villa at rock bottom.

Goals from John Carew and Gabriel Agbonlahor were sandwiched in between a Cristiano Ronaldo brace before United's 17-year-old debutant Federico Macheda scored a 93rd minute decider.

Agbonlahor and strike partner Carew, reunited because of injury to Emile Heskey, clearly smelt blood with United shorn of defensive rocks Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic.

Join in live match banter as Aston Villa head to Manchester United....