NIGHT TO FORGET FOR SCHOLES

Scholes is dismissed by the referee.

Manchester United manager Sir Alex Ferguson admitted his side had been beaten by the better team in the UEFA Super Cup in Monaco and was grimly philosophical about Paul Scholes' sending off.

The Champions League winners lost 2-1 to UEFA Cup holders Zenit St Petersburg, and they also lost midfielder Scholes to a red card for two yellows.

The midfielder will now miss United's first Champions League game against Villarreal on September 17.

"The sending off was unfortunate, it was an instinctive thing," said Ferguson.

"The fact he had already been booked meant he had to go, unfortunately.

"We understand that he misses the first game in Europe, which is even more unfortunate.

"I cannot deny that Zenit deserved to win the game.

I think that they probably just shaded is a little from us."

Goals from Pavel Pogrebnyak and Danny earned the well-organised Russian champions a two-goal lead which was halved by a Nemanja Vidic goal 17 minutes from time.

But Ferguson admitted his side had a few difficulties on a humid night in Monaco, particularly in defence, where Patrice Evra was run ragged by Zenit wing-back Aleksandr Anyukov.

"The one thing that kept them going was that they had three occasions when they got to the byline in the first 20 minutes and that was a concern for me," explained Ferguson.

"I was obviously looking forward to half time to eradicate that, which we did in the second half.

"I think in tight games, who scores the first goal is in a good position and conceding the first goal right on half time was a bad goal for us.

"There was not much in it and we congratulate St Petersburg on the victory."

Ferguson was happy with his side's reaction to going two behind, though.

Vidic's goal capped a strong period of pressure, led by the lively Carlos Tevez and the arrival of substitutes Ji-sung Park and John O'Shea.

The South Korean started to pull the Zenit defenders around a little and create openings for his team-mates and Ferguson was full of praise for his contribution.

"It's his first game for three or four months and his first step forwards after his knee operation," he said.

"I think with Ji-sung Park you get a good player with a good understanding of the game, good movement and he did his job okay.

"We played better when we were 2-0 down and made some good chances and when we scored with something like 17 minutes to go, we still found time to recover and get back into the game.

"But the game was running away from us a little bit."

Zenit St Petersburg coach Dick Advocaat was delighted as his team turned on the style once again.

"I think if we see the chances we created tonight, we deserved the win," said Advocaat.

"The start was a little bit difficult and we had problems with the movement of our strikers for the first 15 minutes.

"Then we created chances and unfortunately we did not score enough, but overall I think it was a well-deserved win."

Advocaat afforded himself the luxury of leaving coveted striker Andrei Arshavin on the bench for the first half, but he denied his choice had anything to do with speculation linking the striker with a transfer to Tottenham.

"I should perhaps also have to explain why other players were not playing," he said.

"You make a decision and that was that Dominguez played the first half and Arshavin the second. It's as simple as that."

"They (Tottenham) had several weeks of time to buy him and they did not offer 22 million like everybody has been writing but just 16 million.

"I think that Arshavin costs more than 16 million."

However, Advocaat has left the door ajar to a deal going through this weekend.

"In principle, this is the squad I like," he said when asked if he was looking to bolster his squad before the transfer deadline.

"There is no need to buy new players.

We have bought two players - a central defender and an extra striker - and that works, if everybody stays, because you never know."

After setting Europe alight on the way to success in the UEFA Cup last season, and with this impressive victory over the English champions, Advocaat believes Zenit can now enter the Champions League next month with high expectations.

"I think it is not an easy draw for us, but we did really well in the UEFA Cup and why not in the Champions League too," he added.

"Tonight we gave a warning so everybody knows what to expect, but the Champions League is a bit different to today, which was in principle a friendly match, although an important one."

Zenit will kick off their Champions League campaign at Juventus on September 17 and face Real Madrid and BATE Borisov in Group H.

But Friday's win over United will surely leave Juve and Real in no two minds that they have another rival for a place in the second round.