Blackpool 2 Man United 3

Black­pool 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 3, Bloom­field Road, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Jan­uary 25, 2011. Black­pool were the su­per­i­or si­de by far in the fir­st pe­riod, but Man­chester Uni­ted ma­naged to come back from be­hind to be­at the hosts by three goals to two. Af­ter find­ing them­selves two goals down at the ha­lf-time break, Uni­ted re­turned strong­er in the sec­ond ha­lf and sco­red three goals dur­ing the fi­nal sta­ges to snatch all three points from the jaws of defeat.

Man­chester Uni­ted had won two and drawn eight times when play­ing away from their Old Traf­ford ho­me and were fa­vour­ites to win their third away vic­tory of the 2010-11 sea­son as they took on Pre­mier Lea­gue new boys Black­pool who had won three, drawn two, and lost four mat­ches at Bloom­field Road. Black­pool were mis­sing de­fender Chris Bas­ham, stri­ker Billy Clarke, goal­keeper Matt Gilks, and mid­field mo­tor Ma­laury Mar­tin for the clash, which had be­en res­ched­uled from the 4th of Dec­ember 2010 be­cause of a frozen pitch, whi­le Man­chester Uni­ted had to make do with­out the phys­ic­al pres­ence of key play­ers Mi­chael Car­rick and Rio Fer­dinand. Des­pite of the fact that The Tan­ger­ines had sur­prised the punters on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions dur­ing the fir­st ha­lf of the cam­paign, Uni­ted were ex­pec­ted to be­at Ian Hol­lo­way’s troops as long as they played to their full po­ten­tial. The Bloom­field Road out­fit had suf­fered a 2-1 de­feat at ho­me to Ste­ve Bruce´s Sun­der­land in their pre­vi­ous fix­ture and, fol­low­ing a great start to the sea­son, they now fou­nd them­selves in mid-ta­ble po­s­i­tion. High-fly­ing Man­chester Uni­ted, mean­while, had ex­ten­ded their un­beaten re­cord in the Pre­mier Lea­gue to an amaz­ing 27 mat­ches wi­th their 5–0 slaughter­ing of Birm­ing­ham City at Old Traf­ford just three days earlier.

Be­fore the fix­ture on the 25th of Jan­uary 2011, one had to go back to the 26th of April of 1975 to find the last time Black­pool and Man­chester Uni­ted had played each oth­er. On that day, The Sea­siders were blown away by a clin­ic­al and dom­in­ant per­form­ance from Tom­my Docherty´s ramp­ant te­am who had be­en pro­moted to the Fir­st Di­vi­sion the week be­fore. Dur­ing a one-sided en­counter, Man­chester Uni­ted de­feated Black­pool 4-0 at Old Traf­ford thro­ugh a double from Stu­art Pear­son and a goal each from Lou Ma­cari and Bri­an Green­hoff to seal a mem­or­able sea­son for The Reds. Fur­ther­more, Black­pool and Man­chester Uni­ted had not met in a top-flight ga­me since the long gone days of for­mer Prime Min­is­ter Sir Ed­ward Heath, who, by the way, was not in­to foot­ball at all. On the fi­nal day of the 1970-71 cam­paign, the two clubs drew 1-1 in Black­pool wi­th Scot­land in­ter­na­tion­al De­nis Law net­ting for Uni­ted in the sixth min­ute and his fel­low coun­try­man To­ny Green lev­el­ling for Bob Stokoe´s men twenty min­utes la­ter in front of 30,000 people at Bloom­field Road.

Black­pool fea­tured a start­ing lineup in­clud­ing Rich­ard King­son, Al­ex Bap­tiste, Neal Eard­ley, Craig Cath­cart, Ian Ev­att, Char­lie Ad­am, El­li­ot Grand­in, Da­vid Vaugh­an, Lu­ke Var­ney, Ga­ry Tay­lor-Fletch­er, and DJ Camp­bell, whi­le Man­chester Uni­ted fielded a si­de con­tain­ing Ed­win van der Sar, Ra­fael da Silva, Chris Small­ing, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Dar­ron Gib­son, Lu­is Nani, Paul Scho­les, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, and Way­ne Roo­ney. The Fylde Coast club, who had not ma­naged to de­feat Uni­ted since Ron Suart´s play­ers mauled Matt Busby´s te­am 5-1 at Bloom­field Road in the Lea­gue Cup Sec­ond Ro­und on the 14th of Septem­ber 1966, went in­to the lead when pre­vi­ous Old Traf­ford stop­per Craig Cath­cart head­ed an ex­cel­lent Char­lie Ad­am cor­ner pa­st away cus­todi­an Ed­win van der Sar and in­to the back of the net af­ter fif­teen min­utes of pul­sating play. The ho­me si­de con­tin­ued to at­tack wi­th pace at every op­por­tun­ity and doubled their lead just be­fore the sound of the ha­lf-time whistle as an­oth­er su­perb flag-kick from Ad­am fou­nd its way to for­mer Eng­land C in­ter­na­tion­al Dud­ley Ju­ni­or Camp­bell who head­ed in at the back post. Sir Al­ex Fer­guson re­placed Re­pub­lic of Ire­land mid­fielder Dar­ron Gib­son wi­th Ry­an Gig­gs at the in­ter­val, and the Welshman´s cre­ativ­ity pro­vided the vis­it­ing te­am wi­th a much need­ed boost in the sec­ond pe­riod. Fer­guson made two more changes to his si­de la­ter in the ga­me, how­ever, as Mex­ic­an in­ter­na­tion­al Javi­er Her­nandez came on for Way­ne Roo­ney, whi­le Oli­veira An­der­son re­placed fel­low Brazili­an Ra­fael da Silva who left the field on a stretcher.

Black­pool look­ed a reas­on­able bet to cause an up­set un­til Bul­gari­an marks­man Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov re­duced the de­fi­cit by tap­ping ho­me a Dar­ren Fletch­er cross on 72 min­utes. And on­ly a couple of min­utes la­ter, Chi­charito drew Man­chester Uni­ted level when the for­mer Club De­port­ivo Guadala­jara stri­ker ran on to a clev­er long pass from Ry­an Gig­gs and be­at Black­pool goal­tender Rich­ard King­son wi­th a fine fin­ish to make it 2-2. Then, wi­th two min­utes left on the clock, Ber­batov sco­red the win­ner as he ham­mered the ball pa­st King­son and in­to the net from in­side the area to give the hosts the coup de grace. Fol­low­ing the hard-earned 3-2 win over Black­pool at Bloom­field Road, Uni­ted were now five points in front of their fel­low title chal­lengers Ar­senal. Black­pool Te­am: Rich­ard King­son, Al­ex Bap­tiste, Neal Eard­ley, Craig Cath­cart, Ian Ev­att, Char­lie Ad­am, El­li­ot Grand­in, Da­vid Vaugh­an, DJ Camp­bell, Ga­ry Tay­lor-Fletch­er, Lu­ke Var­ney. Sub­stitutes: Paul Rachub­ka, Rob Ed­wards, Keith South­ern, Ludovic Sylvestre, Matt Phil­lips, Mar­lon Hare­wood, Brett Or­merod. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ed­win van der Sar, Ra­fael da Silva, Chris Small­ing, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Dar­ron Gib­son, Lu­is Nani, Paul Scho­les, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: An­ders Linde­gaard, Javi­er Her­nandez, Jon­athan Evans, Fa­bio da Silva, Oli­veira An­der­son, Ry­an Gig­gs, Mi­chael Owen.

Dimitar Berbatov Quickfacts

Di­m­it­ar “Mitko” Ber­batov be­came the fir­st Bul­gari­an play­er to win the Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue title as Man­chester Uni­ted won the Pre­miership for a third con­sec­ut­ive time in the 2008-09 season.

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