Bournemouth 1 Man United 3

Man­chester Uni­ted Facts­book Re­port: Bourne­mouth 1 Man­chester Uni­ted 3, Vi­tal­ity Sta­dium, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Au­gust 14, 2016. Jose Mou­rinho was well pleased af­ter his Man­chester Uni­ted te­am had com­fort­ably de­feated Bourne­mouth 3-1 at Vi­tal­ity Sta­dium. Mid­fielder Ju­an Ma­ta gave Uni­ted the lead in the fir­st pe­riod, whi­le for­wards Way­ne Roo­ney and Zlatan Ibrahimovic ad­ded a goal each for the vis­it­ors af­ter the re­sump­tion of play be­fore Ad­am Smith net­ted a late con­sol­a­tion for The Cherries.

Jose Mourinho´s Man­chester Uni­ted Squad for the 2016-17 cam­paign in­cluded goal­keep­ers Da­vid de Gea, Sam John­stone, and Ser­gio Rom­ero; de­fenders Eric Bailly, Da­ley Bli­nd, Mat­teo Dar­mian, Sad­ik El-Fi­t­ouri, Phil Jones, Mar­cos Rojo, Lu­ke Shaw, and Chris Small­ing; mid­field­ers Mi­chael Car­rick, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, An­der Her­rera, Jesse Lin­gard, Ju­an Ma­ta, Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an, Paul Po­gba, Mor­gan Schneider­lin, Basti­an Sch­wein­steiger, An­tonio Va­lencia, and Ash­ley Young; and for­wards Mem­ph­is De­pay, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, An­thony Mar­tial, Mar­cus Rash­ford, and Way­ne Roo­ney. Af­ter de­feat­ing reign­ing Pre­miership Cham­pi­ons Lei­cester City 2-1 at Wemb­ley Sta­dium in the FA Com­munity Shield, FA Cup hold­ers Man­chester Uni­ted kicked off the new Pre­mier Lea­gue sea­son wi­th a mat­ch ag­ainst Bourne­mouth at Vi­tal­ity Sta­dium. The So­uth Coast­ers near­ly went in­to the lead af­ter a mere four min­utes of ac­tion when Eng­land play­er Lu­ke Shaw failed to con­trol a loop­ing cross from Char­lie Dan­iels and the loose ball was grabbed by Cal­lum Wil­son, on­ly for the for­mer Cov­entry City fa­vour­ite to shoot wide from the edge of the six-yard box. Man­chester Uni­ted, who were with­out £89 mil­lion sign­ing Paul Po­gba be­cause of sus­pen­sion, also had an early chan­ce as Ju­an Ma­ta sent a lof­ted pass to­wards Way­ne Roo­ney in the ninth min­ute of pro­ceed­ings, but the op­por­tun­ity was thwarted by Si­mon Fran­cis. As the fir­st ha­lf pro­gressed, tho­ugh, Uni­ted gradu­ally took con­trol of the ga­me and Ma­ta gave the vis­it­ors the up­per hand af­ter a dread­ful back pass from Fran­cis just a mere five min­utes ahead of the interval.

Fol­low­ing the in­ter­mis­sion, Roo­ney re­gistered a sec­ond goal for Man­chester Uni­ted wi­th a well pla­ced head­er from some six yards out four­teen min­utes in­to sec­ond ha­lf, whi­le Zlatan Ibrahimovic made the score 3-0 to the vis­it­ing out­fit wi­th a low shot from out­side the eight­een-yard area four min­utes pa­st the hour ma­rk, be­fore Ad­am Smith re­cor­ded a con­sol­a­tion goal for Bourne­mouth when the pre­vi­ous Eng­land U21 de­fender fe­ro­ciously ham­mered the ball pa­st away shot stop­per Da­vid de Gea and in­to the top right-hand cor­ner of the net five min­utes la­ter. Man­chester Uni­ted def­in­itely parked the bus af­ter­wards, and wi­th three points more or less as­sured, the spe­cial one de­cided to re­place Ju­an Ma­ta, An­thony Mar­tial, and Way­ne Roo­ney wi­th Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an, Mor­gan Schneider­lin, and Mem­ph­is De­pay re­spect­ively dur­ing the clos­ing sta­ges of the clash. In oth­er sea­son open­ers, Hull City sur­pris­ingly be­at Lei­cester City by two goals to one at KCOM Sta­dium, Man­chester City de­feated Sun­der­land two-one at Eti­had Sta­dium, Middles­brough were held to a one-all draw ag­ainst Sto­ke City at River­side Sta­dium, Burn­ley were beaten one-nil by Swansea City at Turf Moor, South­ampton drew one-all wi­th Wat­ford St Mary’s Sta­dium, Crys­tal Pal­ace suc­cumbed to a one-nil loss at the hands of West Brom­wich Al­bion at Sel­hurst Park, Ever­ton and Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur played out a one-all draw at Good­ison Park, Liver­pool edged out Ar­senal by four goals to three at Emir­ates Sta­dium, and Chel­sea over­came West Ham Uni­ted by two-one at Stam­ford Bridge where Diego Costa hit the win­ner for The Blues in the fi­nal minute.

Jose Mou­rinho, who had suc­ceeded Louis van Gaal three months earli­er, was in a re­fresh­ingly good mood fol­low­ing the pro­fes­sion­al and com­fort­able 3-1 win over Bourne­mouth on the open­ing week­end of the sea­son. At the press con­fer­ence af­ter the en­counter wi­th Ed­die Howe´s  men, the new­ly hired Man­chester Uni­ted boss told the press that he was de­lighted wi­th his team´s col­lect­ive ef­fort and also praised his play­ers for fol­low­ing his bus-park­ing tac­tics to the let­ter in the sec­ond ha­lf of pro­ceed­ings. Jose Mou­rinho: “I am very happy. Bourne­mouth al­ways start wi­th great in­tens­ity, but we kept our con­trol. We weren’t sur­prised and then we star­ted play­ing. In­stead of go­ing for a big­ger res­ult you have to try to con­trol. We went for that and we were al­ways in con­trol. I am happy wi­th the te­am.” Bourne­mouth Te­am: Ar­tur Boruc, Ste­ve Cook, Ad­am Smith, Char­lie Dan­iels, Si­mon Fran­cis, Harry Arter, Lewis Cook, Drew Sur­man, Jor­don Ibe, Josh King, Cal­lum Wil­son. Sub­stitutes: Nat­han Ake, Brad Smith, Dan Gos­ling, Max Gradel, Benik Afobe, Lewis Grabban, Ad­am Fe­d­er­ici. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Eric Bailly, Lu­ke Shaw, Da­ley Bli­nd, Va­lencia, An­der Her­rera, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, An­thony Mar­tial, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, Ma­ta, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Mar­cos Rojo, Mem­ph­is De­pay, Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an, Mor­gan Schneider­lin, Mi­chael Car­rick, Mar­cus Rash­ford, Ser­gio Romero.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted over­came Da­vid Moyes´s Ever­ton 2-0 at Good­ison Park on the open­ing Sat­urday of the 2005-06 sea­son thanks to a goal each by Ruud van Nistel­rooy and Way­ne Rooney.

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