BY Joe Lovejoy ( The Times )

AND SO the focus, and the pressure, switches to Arsenal, who need to beat Derby at Highbury today if this neck-and-neck title race is to go to the wire. United remain favourites, and understandably so. Even without a Who's Who of top players, they were too good for Villa, and could afford to spurn a penalty and still go back to the top of the Premiership.

For one reason or another, Alex Ferguson was without Jaap Stam, Roy Keane, Andy Cole and Ryan Giggs, but such is the depth at Old Trafford that he whistled up four more internationals and watched United extend their unbeaten run to 27 matches. The Villa manager. John Gregory, said: "They'll win the title. I said that a long time ago, and I'll stick with it."

This latest success was the product of contrasting goals, one a Steve Watson own goal and the other a David Beckham gem from 25 yards. Villa were second best for long periods, but stuck to their task and constructed a good goal of their own for Julian Joachim. Michael Oakes saved Denis Irwin's penalty to keep them in it, but a point would have been flattering.

And so an afternoon that started in sober reflection ended in raucous celebration. The lunchtime stroll down Sir Matt Busby Way, past the statue of the great man, had added poignancy on the day the game mourned another of its knights, Sir Alf Ramsey, with a minute's silence.

With Arsenal in bristling form - 11 goals in two games - United needed to reassert themselves after dropping two points at Leeds last weekend. Villa's title challenge had petered out, as most of us thought it would, but they arrived on the back of three successive wins and three clean sheets. Less auspiciously, they were without a victory at Old Trafford since 1983 and the goalkeeper United are said to covet, Mark Bosnich, was dropped after failing to agree a new contract.

Ferguson was presented with yet another manager of the month award before the kick-off, when his team took the field to the strains of 'Viva Espaņa'. Roll on Barcelona. United began at a brisk tempo, pressing Villa back, and might have had a fourth-minute lead when Blomqvist's long cross from the left was knocked down by Sheringham for Scholes to get in a close-range header which flew straight at Oakes. The same fate befell Butt's shot from distance.

The Villa fans taunted their old favourite, Dwight Yorke, with half-hearted choruses of "what a waste of money". Daft, of course, but they had little else to shout about early on. Beckham produced a peach of a long pass to enable Yorke to beat Villa's offside line, the striker holding the ball up in textbook fashion before supplying Blomqvist, whose finish failed to do justice to a pleasing move. Beckham promptly showed him how to shoot with a 25-yard free kick which beat Oakes only for Southgate to head the ball out from under the crossbar.

United's pressure had its inevitable reward after 19 minutes with what was, in truth, a scruffy goal. Blomqvist "dinked" the ball over the Villa defence to Scholes, who had only to help it goalwards for Watson, attempting a recovery, to nudge it into his own net. Villa kept trying to play the good, passing football which served them so well in the first half of the season, and were level, after 33 minutes, albeit against the run of play. Blomqvist lost the ball in midfield, allowing Merson to send Stone scuttling to the byline on the right to deliver a centre which the onrushing Joachim swept in from the edge of the six-yard box.

Straightaway, Dublin threatened to embarrass Schmeichel with a deftly executed lob, then Joachim skinned Johnsen for pace and Merson tested Schmeichel overhead. United had lost the initiative, and their way. They needed the lift that the splendidly resurgent Sheringham gave them just before half-time, when his strong 25-yard drive had Oakes torpedoing high to his right to palm the ball away.

Little more than a minute after the resumption, United's lead was restored with a goal from Beckham's top drawer. Opting for placement rather than pace from 25 yards, he floated a free kick over Villa's defensive wall and under the bar to Oakes' right. The poor keeper stood helpless, transfixed by the accuracy of the execution. Gregory said: "He's so good with those that they're as good as a penalty."

Sheringham, with a mazy little run on the edge of the penalty area, and Scholes, with a fulminating shot from 20 yards, sought to improve United's advantage. The force was with the men in red again, but once again Villa came back, and they might well have had a penalty, rather than an unproductive free-kick for obstruction, when Blomqvist's clumsy challenge sent Draper sprawling. "It looked like a penalty to me," Gregory said. "It was a yard inside the box, but he (the referee) gave it a yard outside." Instead it was United who had a penalty, after 65 minutes, when Beckham's cross from the right panicked Stone into pushing Phil Neville as he moved to challenge for the ball just beyond the far post. Irwin gave the kick a hefty thump, but Oakes guessed right and made a notable save, one-handed to his right. For the second time in the match, United lost their momentum, yet they might have had a third goal in the last minute when Yorke, slaloming through the middle, was denied by Wright's swift penalty area intervention.

Another three points would do nicely, but Ferguson admitted: "It became an edgy type of game for us because Villa have got their form back. Their goal stunned us, and it became a bit of a battle towards the end." One or two of yesterday's absentees should be back for Wednesday's trip to Liverpool, he said. Meanwhile, over to you, Arsenal.

Man Utd: Schmeichel, G Neville, May (Brown 79), Johnsen, Irwin, Beckham, Scholes, Butt, Blomqvist (P. Neville 63), Yorke, Sheringham.
Goals: Watson 20 (og), Beckham 46.

Aston Villa: Oakes, Watson, Southgate, Calderwood, Wright, Stone, Draper (Thompson 67), Taylor, Merson, Joachim, Dublin (Vassell 75).
Booked: Taylor.
Goals: Joachim 33.

Attendance: 55,189.

Referee: K Burge (Tonypandy).