Ronaldo keeps United on Arsenal's heels

Birmingham - Cristiano Ronaldo marked his 100th Premiership appearance for Manchester United in the perfect style with the solitary goal that delivered a 1-0 victory over Birmingham at St Andrews on Saturday.

United warmed up ahead of their Champions League meeting with Italian side AS Roma at Old Trafford on Tuesday night with their fourth 1-0 win of the campaign in their eight games so far to keep Sir Alex Ferguson just two points adrift of Premier League leaders Arsenal.

But United were far from at their best as Steve Bruce's side gave them a thorough examination and were unlucky not to claim a point.

Portuguese winger Ronaldo ensured that it remains 29-years since Birmingham last beat United with his first league goal of the season, after registering his first goal of the campaign against Sporting Lisbon in the Champions League last week.

Although United's fifth successive league victory did come at the cost of losing Dutch international goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar with an injury that could force him to miss Tuesday night's visit of Roma.

Van der Sar injured himself in a heavy fall before half time and had to be replaced by Polish back-up keeper Tomasz Kuszczak at half-time.

United were fortunate as Van der Sar had to make two fine saves in the opening two minutes to keep out Cameron Jerome's shot from the edge of the area and Franck Queudrue's header from the resulting corner.

And Serbian defender Vidic demonstrated just why Ferguson and the hierarchy at Old Trafford are looking to offer him a new contract, just two years into his existing deal, with a fine block to to prevent Jerome from opening the scoring. Rio Ferdinand also cleared off the goalline to deny Gary McSheffrey.

After being "flabbergasted" by the way his next crop of youngsters capitulated to Coventry City in the League Cup last Wednesday night, Ferguson returned to the same team that had beaten Chelsea six days earlier, but they struggled to discover the same levels of intensity.

There only real opportunity was wasted when Wes Brown's excellent long pass drew Maik Taylor off his line, but Wayne Rooney, whose last Premiership goal came back on April 28th against Everton, failed to lift his attempted lob over the Birmingham goalkeeper.

Rooney had scored in his last three games against Birmingham, but has now gone nine games without a goal this season and his lack of goals will be a worry for Ferguson and England manager Steve McClaren, but there are no concerns about Ronaldo.

Birmingham only made one real mistake in the whole of the 90 minutes and Ronaldo was on hand to punish them in the most severe way possible and deny manager Steve Bruce a celebratory glass of red wine with his former manager at United.

Ferdinand's long ball should have been dealt with by Queudrue as it bounced in the area, but he failed to intercept and Ronaldo nipped and swerved past Liam Ridgewell and Maik Taylor before sliding his shot into an empty net from close range to give United their fifth 1-0 win in 11 games so far.