Manchester U 1 Everton 0

Man­chester Uni­ted 1 Ever­ton 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, April 23, 2011. Man­chester Uni­ted dom­in­ated for most of the ga­me ag­ainst Ever­ton, but the ho­me fans had to wait un­til the 84th min­ute for the break­through when Chi­charito sco­red wi­th a header. 

Af­ter a dis­ap­point­ing goal­less draw ag­ainst New­castle Uni­ted at St Ja­mes´ Park in their pre­vi­ous Pre­mier Lea­gue fix­ture, Man­chester Uni­ted locked horns wi­th Ever­ton at Old Traf­ford. Al­though Ever­ton had ma­naged to over­come Black­burn Rov­ers by 2-0 at Good­ison Park in their last Pre­miership en­counter thanks to goals from Le­on Os­man and Leigh­ton Baines, Uni­ted were strong fa­vour­ites to de­feat The Tof­fees who had not won at Old Traf­ford since beat­ing The Reds 3-0 on the 19th of Au­gust 1992 thro­ugh a goal each from Pe­ter Beard­s­ley, Ro­bert War­zycha, and Mo John­ston. Man­chester Uni­ted were mis­sing mid­fielder Paul Scho­les be­cause of sus­pen­sion, whi­le for­ward Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov and mid­field­ers Owen Har­greaves and Dar­ren Fletch­er were all out wi­th dif­fer­ent in­jur­ies. The Ever­to­ni­ans, on the oth­er hand, had to make do with­out the play­ing ser­vices of de­fender John Heitinga, mid­field­ers Mikel Ar­teta and Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, and for­ward Louis Saha who were all side­lined wi­th vari­ous in­jury prob­lems, but mid­fielder Tim Ca­hill was back in ac­tion for the club.

On a sunny Sat­urday in Man­chester, Javi­er Her­nandez grabbed a late win­ner to keep Man­chester Uni­ted six points clear at the top of the Pre­mier Lea­gue ta­ble wi­th a 1-0 vic­tory over Ever­ton. The Mex­ic­an ad­ded to his tally in the 84th min­ute when An­tonio Va­lencia power­ed down his way the flank and cros­sed the ball to the twenty-two-year-old stri­ker who pro­duced an ex­cel­lent fin­ish. The fir­st chan­ce on goal fell to Lu­is Nani in the thir­teenth min­ute of the con­test, but his ef­fort was su­perbly saved by for­mer Man­chester Uni­ted shot stop­per Tim How­ard. Her­nandez then had a good goal scor­ing op­por­tun­ity in the 25th min­ute of ac­tion, but the marks­man was denied by an­oth­er ex­cel­lent save by How­ard. The greatest scor­ing chan­ce of the fir­st ha­lf ar­rived shortly be­fore the in­ter­val, tho­ugh, when Va­lencia fou­nd Nani who would surely have sco­red had the ball not hit Her­nandez. Da­vid Moyes re­placed Din­i­yar Bilyaletdinov and Jer­maine Beck­ford wi­th Vic­tor Anichebe and Tim Ca­hill at the ha­lf-time break, whi­le Sir Al­ex Fer­guson bro­ught Pat­rice Ev­ra, Mi­chael Owen, and Ry­an Gig­gs on for John O’Shea, Lu­is Nani, and Dar­ron Gib­son dur­ing the sec­ond pe­riod. Man­chester Uni­ted kept up the at­tack­ing pres­sure as the ha­lf pro­ceeded and it came as no sur­prise to any­one when Ferguson´s title con­tenders fi­nally went in­to the lead af­ter 84 min­utes as Her­nandez rose to head ho­me an ex­traordin­ary back post cross from Va­lencia. The Mer­sey­siders threw every­thing they had at Man­chester Uni­ted dur­ing the clos­ing sta­ges of the ga­me, but the red shir­ted play­ers held on to win the tussle by the nar­row­est of mar­gins. Fol­low­ing the ho­me vic­tory over The Blues, Uni­ted now had 73 points from 34 mat­ches played.

Speak­ing af­ter the tri­umph over The Tof­fee­men, Sir Al­ex Fer­guson was full of praise for his Man­chester Uni­ted te­am, and in par­tic­u­lar Javi­er Her­nandez. Sir Al­ex Fer­guson: “We tho­ught that it would take a year for Javi­er Her­nandez to get prop­erly settled, but he has ad­ap­ted to Eng­lish foot­ball very qui­ckly. Her­nandez is in for train­ing every day at nine o’clock in the morn­ing and he is the last to leave. This boy is truly ded­ic­ated.”  Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ed­win van der Sar, Jon­athan Evans, John O’Shea, Fa­bio da Silva, An­tonio Va­lencia, Rio Fer­dinand, Oli­veira An­der­son, Dar­ron Gib­son, Javi­er Her­nandez, Way­ne Roo­ney, Lu­is Nani. Sub­stitutes: Wes­ley Bro­wn, Ra­fael da Silva, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ry­an Gig­gs, Mi­chael Owen, To­masz Kusz­czak. Ever­ton Te­am: Tim How­ard, Sylvain Dis­tin, Seamus Cole­man, To­ny Hi­b­bert, Leigh­ton Baines, Phil Ja­gielka, Phil Ne­ville, Jack Rod­well, Le­on Os­man, Din­i­yar Bilyaletdinov, Jer­maine Beck­ford. Sub­stitutes: Shkodran Mustafi, Shane Duffy, Magaye Gueye, Tim Ca­hill, Vic­tor Anichebe, Aposto­los Vel­lios, Jan Mucha.

Javier Hernandez Quickfacts

Javi­er “Chi­charito” Her­man­dez net­ted his fir­st Pre­mier Lea­gue goal for Man­chester Uni­ted in a 2–2 draw wi­th West Brom­wich Al­bion at Old Traf­ford on the 16th of Oct­ober 2011, and hit his fir­st brace for the club in a 2–1 Pre­miership vic­tory over Sto­ke City at Brit­an­nia Sta­dium the fol­low­ing weekend.

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