Scholes Savours Derby Drama

As demonstrated by the wild nature of the celebrations which greeted Paul Scholes' dramatic winner at Eastlands, Manchester derbies are high up on the agenda for United players and fans alike.

Beyond the bigger issue of United's ongoing Premier League title chase, this season the Reds have revelled in three injury-time victories, having punctured City's inflated ambition in injury-time every time.

After joining the travelling support to rejoice in Saturday's dramatic triumph, Scholes revealed that Sir Alex Ferguson's squad take as much joy as the fans from victories which carry an added slug of schadenfreude.

"It's a massive game for fans of both teams and I know how much this will mean to our fans, and I can assure you it means exactly the same to us," Scholes told MUTV.

"It's great, obviously. To win in a Manchester derby is a big thing, whatever way you do it, and that's three times this season where we've managed to score in the last minute to win games and it's a nice feeling.

"We just keep going. Some teams play for a draw - whether City were doing that I don't know - but we're not a team who ever plays for a draw. We want to win all our games and that guarantees that we'll go right to the end."

City will feel aggrieved to take nothing tangible from a string of enthralling derbies this term, but Scholes feels the Reds' latest victory was fair after a patient, solid display.

"I think we deserved it," he said. "We had a couple of great chances in the first half and could've gone in one or two goals up. City had a couple of chances but I thought, in the main, that we defended brilliantly. The back four were fantastic, Edwin was great and we've managed to sneak it in the end.

"We felt comfortable. I think in the last 20 minutes, when you're pushing men forward to try and get the winner, you know there's a chance you might be a bit open. But they were restricted mainly to shots outside the box and with a keeper like Edwin, it's difficult to beat him from there.

"It's a big result for us. Obviously Chelsea are still in a strong position, but we've done all we can here today to keep the pressure on them."