Everton 1 Manchester U 0

Ever­ton 1 Man­chester Uni­ted 0, Good­ison Park, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Au­gust 20, 2012. Man­chester Uni­ted man­ager Sir Al­ex Fer­guson was not par­tic­u­larly pleased wi­th his team´s fin­ish­ing af­ter the 1-0 de­feat to Da­vid Moyes´s Ever­ton at Good­ison Park. It was the fir­st open­ing day de­feat for Uni­ted since they suf­fered a 1-0 loss to Chel­sea at Stam­ford Bridge in their fir­st fix­ture of the 2004-2005 campaign.

Man­chester Uni­ted struggled ag­ainst a strong and con­fid­ent Ever­ton te­am who bag­ged all three points cour­tesy of an un­stoppable clo­se ran­ge head­er from Ray Dor­set look-alike Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini early in the sec­ond ha­lf. Neth­er­lands in­ter­na­tion­al Robin van Per­sie, who had joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted from bit­ter rivals Ar­senal for an es­tim­ated trans­fer fee of £22 mil­lion just three days earli­er, ev­entually emer­ged from the an­onym­ity of the sub­stitutes´ bench eight min­utes pa­st the hour ma­rk, but his team­mates failed to cre­ate any de­cent goal scor­ing op­por­tun­it­ies for the marks­man and he failed to make any sort of im­pact on the mat­ch. Al­though bo­th of the te­ams had their fair share of chances dur­ing the fir­st ha­lf, the hosts were clearly the bet­ter si­de for much of the open­ing forty-five min­utes. The Ever­to­ni­ans con­tin­ued to press for a goal fol­low­ing the break and some twelve min­utes in­to the sec­ond ha­lf, Fel­laini rose to head an ac­cur­ate cor­ner pa­st Da­vid de Gea in the Man­chester Uni­ted goal and in­to the net to hand the ho­me te­am a fully de­served lead. Uni­ted had a golden op­por­tun­ity to equal­ise on sixty-six min­utes, but Tom Cleverley´s si­de-footed shot from clo­se ran­ge was cleared off the line by Ever­ton and Eng­land de­fender Phil Ja­gielka. Then, in the sixty-eighth min­ute, Sir Al­ex Fer­guson de­cided to re­place Dan­ny Wel­beck wi­th Van Per­sie, and on­ly a couple of min­utes la­ter the stri­ker bril­liantly cros­sed the ball for ex-Bor­uss­sia Dort­mund ace Shinji Ka­gawa, but Good­ison Park net­mind­er Tim How­ard ma­naged to block his path. And des­pite push­ing hard in the clos­ing sta­ges of the tie, Man­chester Uni­ted were un­able to find the net and ended up los­ing their open­ing en­counter of the 2012-13 season.

Else­where, de­fend­ing Pre­mier Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Man­chester City over­came South­ampton by three goals to two at Eti­had Sta­dium, West Ham Uni­ted edged out As­ton Vil­la one-nil at Boleyn Gro­und, Ful­ham de­mol­ished Nor­wich City five-nil at Craven Cot­tage where Croa­tian in­ter­na­tion­al Mladen Pet­ric re­gistered a brace for the West Lon­doners, Swansea City won by the same sco­reline ag­ainst Queens Park Ran­gers at Shepherd´s Bush, Read­ing and Sto­ke City shared the spoils in a one-all draw at Madejski Sta­dium, Wi­gan Ath­let­ic suc­cumbed to a two-nil de­feat at the hands of Chel­sea at DK Sta­dium, Ar­senal were held to a goal­less draw by Sun­der­land at Emir­ates Sta­dium, Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur lost two-one ag­ainst New­castle Uni­ted at St Ja­mes’ Park, and West Brom­wich Al­bion trashed Liver­pool three-nil at The Haw­thorns, wi­th Zoltan Gera, Pe­ter Odem­wingie, and Ro­melu Lu­kaku scor­ing for The Throstles. Sir Al­ex Fer­guson: “We had the pos­ses­sion and made some great open­ings with­out ac­tu­ally fin­ish­ing it. We were a bit dis­ap­point­ing in terms of fin­ish­ing off the ap­proach play we had. We played ar­ound Robin van Per­sie too much and we did not show enough pen­et­ra­tion. And, wi­th him in your te­am, you know that you want to use his abil­ity ag­ainst centre backs in situ­ations he is very good at.” Ever­ton Te­am: Tim How­ard, Leigh­ton Baines, Sylvain Dis­tin, To­ny Hi­b­bert, Phil Ja­gielka, Phil Ne­ville, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, Dar­ron Gib­son, Le­on Os­man, Ste­ven Pien­aar, Nikica Jelavic. Sub­stitutes: Johnny Heitinga, Ross Barkley, Seamus Cole­man, Magaye Gueye, Ste­ven Na­i­s­mith, Vic­tor Anichebe, Jan Mucha. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ne­manja Vid­ic, An­tonio Va­lencia, Mi­chael Car­rick, Paul Scho­les, Lu­is Nani, Tom Clev­er­ley, Way­ne Roo­ney, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Shinji Ka­gawa. Sub­stitutes: Robin van Per­sie, Scott Woot­ton, Ra­fael da Silva, Ash­ley Young, Oli­veira An­der­son, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, An­ders Lindegaard.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted, then called New­ton Heath, and Ever­ton met for the fir­st time on the 24th of Septem­ber 1892. The fix­ture was played at Good­ison Park and the Liv­er­pudli­ans won 6–0 thanks to a brace each from Fred Geary and Edgar Chad­wick plus a goal each by Al­lan Max­well and Alf Milward.

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