Rooney inspires Man Utd comeback against CSKA

Manchester United 3 CSKA Moscow 3. As anyone who witnessed their great escape in the 1999 Champions League final, Sir Alex Ferguson's Manchester United like to leave things late, and so it was last night. Trailing by 3-1 after 47 minutes and on course for their worst ever home drubbing in Europe, a stirring attacking performance in the second half salvaged a draw against a sprightly CSKA Moscow and ensured qualification to the next stage of this season's Champions League.

"If you want excitement come to Old Trafford," Ferguson told reporters after the game. "It's one of the great pleasures of being the manager of this football club - that you can get finishes like that. Fantastic." However privately the Scotsman will be horrified at the defensive lapses that gifted the Russians what should have been a defendable lead, and will have read his makeshift defence the Riot Act after an X-rated showing.

Starting with an entirely second string of Gary Neville, Wes Brown, Jonny Evans and Fabio Da Silva at the back, the initial exchanges went Manchester United's way, and a lively Michael Owen should really have scored on ten minutes when unmarked in the CSKA box. Seven minutes later the erstwhile England man again fluffed his lines, poking the ball at the impressive Igor Akinfeev in goal when he could have put the ball anywhere.

The hosts were soon to pay for their profligacy in front of goal when Alan Dzagoev ghosted past Wes Brown in the centre of defence and hammered the ball past a rooted-to-the-spot Edwin van der Sar in the United goal. Owen finally got it right just four minutes later on the half hour mark, swivelling to rifle home Antonio Valencia's dangerous cross. But Russians hit back just two minutes later to retake the lead, after an offside-looking Milos Krasic calmly took the ball past van der Sar into the net.

Worse yet came after the restart, when an innocuous free kick was headed home by Vasili Berezutski, but Ferguson had a trick up his sleeve, bringing on new dad Wayne Rooney to galvanise his side. Darren Fletcher was booked when he should have been given a penalty after being broguht down in the CSKA box, and the United front men were lining up to have shots at Akinfeev, who could have played his way into a transfer to Old Trafford with his ultimately in-vain saves.

The dam broke on 84 minutes, when a free kick from old warhorse Neville on the right was headed home by Paul Scholes. Then, with the tie in injury time, Valencia took a long-distance shot that was going well wide until it took a desperately unlucky deflection off Georgy Shchennikov and flew past the helpless Akinfeev. United were through, and their 22-game unbeaten home record remained intact, but it had been a close-run thing.