Boss Hails Owen Strike

Sir Alex Ferguson was pleased to see his side come through a tough work-out in Kuala Lumpur and hailed debutant Michael Owen after he came on to fire the winner.

The Reds took a two-goal lead in the first half through Wayne Rooney and Nani, before Yahyah drew the Malaysian XI level, first with a spectacular looping volley just before the break and then seven minutes after it when he took full advantage of Ben Foster's mistake.

Michael Owen was introduced just after the hour and struck a fine winner five minutes from time.

"Michael is different to the other strikers we have here. He's always searching for that space in and around the box and he reacted really well to take his goal," a delighted Sir Alex told MUTV afterwards.

"The goalkeeper blocked the ball as Ryan [Giggs] ran through, but you knew Michael would be the first man to get onto it.

"The game was big test for us. As we expected, they were full of energy, enthusiasm and speed, and they caught us on the counter-attack a few times. It was a very open game and I think anyone watching would have been quite happy with the quality on show.

"We got off to a good start with the two goals, but the problem we had was they scored right on half-time and, with it only being our first game, our energy dropped a bit in the second half.

"It was great vision from the lad [Yahyah] to get them back into it. As soon as he got the ball he spotted Edwin was a bit off his line and hit a lovely little chip over him.

"Obviously the second goal came about after a mistake by Ben. He just took his eye of the ball and it bobbled up a little bit. It's unfortunate because he's only just come back from injury and he'll want to get that out of his mind as soon as possible.

"You use the first two or three games of pre-season to get your rhythm, tempo and timing back," added the boss, "and that will certainly come."