Aston Villa 2 Man Utd 3

Ruud Van Nistelrooy

As­ton Vil­la 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 3, Vil­la Park, Eng­lish FA Cup Third Ro­und, Jan­uary 6, 2002. Man­chester Uni­ted came from be­ing two goals down to over­come As­ton Vil­la by 3-2. Fol­low­ing a goal­less fir­st pe­riod, Vil­la went two-nil up thro­ugh Ian Tay­lor and an own goal by Phil Ne­ville be­fore a brace from sec­ond ha­lf sub­sti­tute Ruud van Nistel­rooy and one goal by his strik­ing part­ner Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer saw the vis­it­ors win­ning by three goals to two. 

Man­chester Uni­ted came in­to this fix­ture on the back of a 3-1 vic­tory over New­castle Uni­ted at Old Traf­ford, whi­le As­ton Vil­la had ma­naged a 1-1 draw ag­ainst Sun­der­land at Sta­dium of Light in their pre­vi­ous mat­ch. In the last FA Cup meet­ing be­tween the two te­ams, even­tu­al win­ners Uni­ted had beaten Vil­la 2-1 in a quart­er-fi­nal tie at Old Traf­ford on the 19th of Mat­ch 1977 thanks to a goal each from Stew­art Hou­s­ton and Lou Ma­cari. Af­ter a rather dull fir­st ha­lf, the ga­me at Vil­la Park was bro­ught to life six min­utes in­to the sec­ond pe­riod when a bril­liant thro­ugh pass from Lee Hendrie fou­nd Ian Tay­lor who pla­ced the ball pa­st Man­chester Uni­ted shot stop­per Roy Car­roll and in­to the bot­tom left-hand cor­ner of the net to give As­ton Vil­la a 1-0 lead. And on­ly a couple of min­utes la­ter, The Vil­lains doubled their ad­vant­age as Uni­ted de­fender Phil Ne­ville head­ed a high ball by Paul Mer­son pa­st Car­roll and in­to his own goal. But as the ha­lf wore on, Man­chester Uni­ted re­spon­ded wi­th a trade­mark fin­ish from Nor­we­gi­an stri­ker Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer on 77 min­utes be­fore Neth­er­lands in­ter­na­tion­al Ruud van Nistel­rooy, who had re­placed fel­low sub­sti­tute Lu­ke Chad­wick in the 56th min­ute, hit two late goals in the 80th and 82nd min­utes re­spect­ively to hand the vis­it­ing si­de a 3-2 win.

In oth­er FA Cup ga­mes, hold­ers Liver­pool trashed Birm­ing­ham City by 3-0 at An­field cour­tesy of a fir­st ha­lf brace by Mi­chael Owen and a late goal from Nic­olas Anelka, Man­chester City de­feated Swin­don To­wn 2-0 at Maine Road, Shef­field Wed­nesday suf­fered a 2-1 loss to Crewe Al­ex­an­dra at Gresty Road, Chel­sea were held to a goal­less draw by Nor­wich City at Car­row Road, Spurs be­at Cov­enty City 2-0 at High­field Road, and Ar­senal over­came Wat­ford by 4-2 at Vicar­age Road where Thi­erry Henry, Fred­die Ljun­g­berg, Nwank­wo Kanu, and Den­nis Ber­gkamp re­gistered a goal apiece for The Gun­ners. As­ton Vil­la Te­am: Pe­ter Schmei­chel, Olof Mell­berg, Ste­ve Staunton, Alan Wright, Jl­loyd Samuel, Ge­orge Boa­teng, Ian Tay­lor, Lee Hendrie, Ju­an Pablo An­gel, Paul Mer­son, Dari­us Vas­sell. Sub­stitutes: Gar­eth Bar­ry, Ste­ve Stone, Mustapha Hadji, Ma­rk Delaney, Pe­ter En­ck­el­man. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Roy Car­roll, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Mi­kael Sil­vestre, Lau­rent Blanc, Phil Ne­ville, Ju­an Ver­on, Da­vid Beck­ham, Nicky Butt, Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer, Roy Ke­ane, Paul Scho­les. Sub­stitutes: Mi­chael Stew­art, Lu­ke Chad­wick, Ruud van Nistel­rooy, John O’Shea, Rai­mond van der Gouw.

 

Ruud van Nistelrooy Quickfacts

Af­ter join­ing Man­chester Uni­ted in the sum­mer of 2001, Ruud van Nistel­rooy re­cor­ded his fir­st brace for the club in a 3-2 ho­me win ag­ainst Ful­ham on the open­ing week­end of the 2001-02 season.

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