Swansea 1 Manchester U 4

Swansea City 1 Man­chester Uni­ted 4, Liberty Sta­dium, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Au­gust 17, 2013. Reign­ing Pre­mier Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted had few prob­lems in over­com­ing Swansea City at Liberty Sta­dium in the open­ing ro­und of the 2013-14 sea­son as they won the ga­me 4-1 thanks to a double each from Robin van Per­sie and Dan­ny Welbeck.

The Man­chester Uni­ted Fir­st Te­am Squad for the 2013-14 cam­paign con­tained Da­vid de Gea, Jon­athan Evans, Ra­fael Pe­reira da Silva, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Phil Jones, Rio Fer­dinand, An­der­son Lu­is de Ab­reu Oli­veira, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ju­an Ma­ta, Way­ne Roo­ney, Ry­an Gig­gs, Chris Small­ing, An­ders Linde­gaard, Javi­er Her­nandez, Lu­is Car­los Al­meida da Cunha, An­gelo Hen­riquez, Robin van Per­sie, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Ash­ley Young, Al­ex­an­der Buttner, Ti­ago Manuel Di­as Cor­reia, Fa­bio Pe­reira da Silva, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, Tom Clev­er­ley, Nick Pow­ell, Tom Law­rence, Tyler Black­ett, Fe­d­erico Ma­cheda, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Lu­is An­tonio Va­lencia Mos­quera, Wil­fried Za­ha, Guillermo Varela, Mar­nick Vermijl, Shinji Ka­gawa, Jesse Lin­gard, Mi­chael Ke­ane, Tom Thorpe, Ad­nan Januzaj, Ben Amos, Will Ke­ane, Dav­ide Petrucci, Ja­mes Ant­ony Wil­son, and Sam John­stone. Be­fore the open­ing fix­ture of the 2013-14 Pre­mier Lea­gue sea­son, pre­vi­ous Man­chester Uni­ted boss Sir Al­ex Fer­guson texted re­cently ap­poin­ted Old Traf­ford man­ager Da­vid Moyes to wish him good luck. And as things turned out dur­ing the con­test in Wales, Man­chester Uni­ted out­muscled Swansea City to the fine tune of a 4–1 score in front of an en­thu­si­ast­ic and bois­ter­ous crowd of more than 20,000 spec­tat­ors at Liberty Sta­dium. Robin van Per­sie and Dan­ny Wel­beck pro­duced two goals apiece for the vis­it­ing te­am, where­as for­mer Is­sia Wazy, Sparta Prague, and SBV Vitesse for­ward Wil­fried Bony ma­naged to net a con­sol­a­tion goal for Mi­chael Laudrup´s Swansea in a ga­me which was largely domin­t­ated by the de­fend­ing champions.

Whi­le there were no easy mat­ches in the Pre­mier Lea­gue, Man­chester Uni­ted were al­ways in con­trol ag­ainst The Swans and the away out­fit de­servedly went in­to a 1-0 lead in the 34th min­ute of the tie as pro­lif­ic marks­man Robin van Per­sie stamped his ma­rk wi­th an ac­ro­bat­ic and beau­ti­ful goal to make the di­git­al elec­tric score­boards at bo­th ends of Liberty Sta­dium read 1-0 in fa­vour of the vis­it­ors from Eng­land. And on­ly two min­utes la­ter, Uni­ted re­gistered their sec­ond goal of the tie when the tricky footed An­tonio Va­lencia squared for the bet­ter pla­ced Dan­ny Wel­beck, who com­fort­ably fou­nd the back of the net from clo­se ran­ge to double their ad­vant­age. Dur­ing the in­ter­val, Mi­chael Laudrup made two changes to his te­am as the Dane de­cided to bring on Wil­fried Bony and Pablo Her­nandez for Le­on Brit­tain and Way­ne Rout­ledge re­spect­ively. Man­chester Uni­ted star­ted the sec­ond ha­lf equally well, how­ever, and the gu­ests ev­entually sco­red their third goal af­ter 72 min­utes of the play when Ry­an Gig­gs re­place­ment Way­ne Roo­ney fou­nd Van Per­sie who, fol­low­ing a bril­liant piece of in­di­vidu­al dis­play from the for­mer Ar­senal stri­ker, ham­mered the ball pa­st ho­me cus­todi­an Michel Vorm and in­to the top cor­ner of the net in spec­tac­u­lar fash­ion. Then, ten min­utes la­ter in the con­test, sub­sti­tute Bony notched up a late con­sol­a­tion for the plucky West Glam­or­gan si­de be­fore Wel­beck ad­ded the fi­nal goal of the af­ter­noon to make it 4-1 to Man­chester Uni­ted in the 92nd min­ute of the ac­tion. As for Sir Al­ex Fer­guson, he also texted Da­vid Moyes about a bad tip on a horse. Swansea City Te­am: Michel Vorm, An­gel Ran­gel, Chico, Ash­ley Wil­li­ams, Ben Dav­ies, Le­on Brit­ton, Jose Canas, Way­ne Rout­ledge, Jonjo Shel­vey, Nat­han Dyer, Michu. Sub­stitutes: Ger­hard Trem­mel, Jordi Amat, Ale­jandro Pozuelo. Pablo Her­nandez, Wil­fried Bony, Ki Sung-yueng, Neil Tay­lor. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Phil Jones, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Rio Fer­dinand, Tom Clev­er­ley, Mi­chael Car­rick, Va­lencia, Robin van Per­sie, Ry­an Gig­gs, Dan­ny Wel­beck. Sub­stitutes: An­ders Linde­gaard, Fa­bio, Shinji Ka­gawa, An­der­son, Wil­fried Za­ha, Way­ne Rooney.

Robin van Persie Quickfacts

Fol­low­ing 96 goals in 194 Pre­mier Lea­gue mat­ches for Ar­senal, Robin van Per­sie was bro­ught to Man­chester Uni­ted by Sir Al­ex Fer­guson in the sum­mer of 2012. The Dutch­man made his Pre­mier Lea­gue de­but for his new club when he came off the sub­stitutes´ bench to re­place Dan­ny Wel­beck in a 1–0 de­feat ag­ainst Da­vid Moyes´s Ever­ton si­de at Good­ison Park on the open­ing day of the 2012–13 campaign.

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