United finish on top of Group A

Manchester United beat Shakhtar Donetsk 1-0 at Old Trafford yesterday evening to finish top of Champions League Group A.

The Premier League champions struggled to match their opponents for large parts of the game, but it was the hosts who got the breakthrough on sixty-seven minutes, when Phil Jones volleyed in from a corner.

The club will now turn their attention to Sunday afternoon’s trip to Aston Villa, where they will aim to bridge the thirteen point gap between themselves and league leaders Arsenal before facing Stoke City at the Britannia Stadium in the quarter finals of the League Cup.

Elsewhere, Manchester United’s extraordinary run of live TV matches in the FA Cup will continue as their third round tie against Swansea City next month will be shown on BT Sport.

The fixture will be the club’s 42nd in a row played in front of the television cameras, with the third round replay against Exeter City in January 2005 the last to be shunned by the schedulers.

However, their run in the competition during that time has been far from successful, with their last trophy coming back in 2004 when they beat Millwall at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff.