Veron frees United's spirit

Manchester United 2 Birmingham City

Manchester United's Christmas programme, which hitherto had contained no cheer and little reason to be merry, was furnished with a more festive look yesterday when they disposed of Birmingham City for a win that will not be judged in its true light until Arsenal meet Liverpool this afternoon.

The result took United to within four points of the Premiership leaders and arrested a run of successive defeats that had threatened to end their interest in the championship. If Liverpool can do them a favour at Highbury their presence in third place, level on points with Chelsea, will look ominous.

A glorious second-half goal from David Beckham and Diego Forlan's fifth in his last four starts were enough to secure the points, but it said much for the merits of injury-weakened Birmingham that Fabien Barthez had to produce two outstanding saves from Aliou Cissé to make the scoreline look more comfortable than it was in reality. The second was excellent, the first astonishing for a man who had virtually nothing else to do.

"We could have scored a lot more; we tried to walk the ball into the net at times," Sir Alex Ferguson, the United manager, said. "It would have been a travesty if we had drawn but we had to thank Fabien for two magnificent saves. They woke us up a bit. We got an edge to our game again after that."

That edge was never sharper than with United's second goal, which was as simple as it was devastating. Juan Veron, who gave a master class in passing, noticed Beckham's run from the right and stabbed through a near-perfect ball. The England captain was faced with a one-on-one with Nico Vaesen and beat him with a chip from 25 yards.

It was a "piece of magic" according to the Birmingham manager, Steve Bruce. "You need a bit of luck when you come to a place like this because we were playing against world-class players and we were in the First Division a few months ago."

You had to feel sympathy for Bruce, who returned for his first competitive game at the club where he won three championships, but was deprived of most of his defence. By comparison, Ferguson's option of leaving out Ruud van Nistelrooy (injured), Laurent Blanc, Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs for Forlan, Rio Ferdinand, Mikaël Silvestre and Beckham seemed almost cruel.

Not that the opening stages suggested that the visitors were struggling. To the contrary, and United began so sluggishly that Birmingham created the first hint of a chance, a run and cross from Stan Lazaridis after 10 minutes that Wes Brown just reached ahead of Clinton Morrison.

The home response was slow in coming but as Silvestre, restored to left-back, began to explore the space beyond Jeff Kenna on his flank, the sense that a United goal was inevitable began to grow.

Birmingham were being put under extreme pressure and they succumbed after 37 minutes when Silvestre was again given the freedom of the left, found by Paul Scholes, and crossed to the far post. Beckham is rarely lauded for his ability in the air, despite his 6ft-plus build, but this time he headed back for Forlan to beat Vaesen with an athletic volley.

Veron's range-finder was operating on margins of error in fractions of inches by now. He delivered a 50-yard ball over the Birmingham back four after 47 minutes that you could not imagine any other player in the Premiership making. Scholes was the lucky recipient, but his attempt to cut inside Kenny Cunningham was blocked and, despite home appeals for handball, the danger was cleared.

United were the superior side but the peril of failing to convert their chances became apparent when only a breathtaking save from Barthez prevented Birmingham's equaliser. Paul Devlin sent over a teasing free-kick from the left and Cissé's header seemed destined for the bottom corner until the French goalkeeper's hand suddenly appeared to make the save.

Barthez again came to United's rescue with another save – this time to his left – to block another Cissé header, which made Beckham's goal 17 minutes from time a thing of relief as well as beauty to the majority of the 67,640 crowd.

"When they get all their big aircraft flying they are a wonderful team," Bruce said of United, "and they will be a match for anyone in Europe, never the mind the Premiership."

Manchester United 2 Birmingham City 0
Forlan 37, Beckham 73

Half-time: 1-0 Attendance: 67,640