Man United 3 Sunderland 1

Daley Blind

Man­chester Uni­ted 3 Sun­der­land 1, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Dec­ember 26, 2016. Man­chester Uni­ted won their fourth Pre­miership ga­me in a row as they be­at Sun­der­land 3-1 on Box­ing Day 2016. Da­ley Bli­nd, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an all pro­duced one goal each for Uni­ted be­fore Fa­bio Borini net­ted a con­sol­a­tion for the visitors.

Man­chester Uni­ted had opened the 2016-17 sea­son wi­th a con­vin­cing 3-1 vic­tory ag­ainst AFC Bourne­mouth at the Vi­tal­ity Sta­dium, wi­th goals com­ing from Ju­an Ma­ta, Way­ne Roo­ney, and Zlatan Ibrahimovic re­spect­ively. They fol­lowed up by beat­ing South­ampton and Hull City in their next two mat­ches and fou­nd them­selves sec­ond in the Pre­mier Lea­gue ta­ble to old rivals Chel­sea by the end of Au­gust. Af­ter los­ing their fol­low­ing two ga­mes to Man­chester City and Wat­ford, Uni­ted out­classed reign­ing cham­pi­ons Lei­cester City by 4-1 at Old Traf­ford in late Septem­ber thro­ugh fir­st ha­lf goals by Chris Small­ing, Ju­an Ma­ta, Mar­cus Rash­ford and Paul Po­gba re­spect­ively. Then came con­sec­ut­ive draws to Sto­ke City and Liver­pool be­fore they suf­fered a hu­mi­li­at­ing and pain­ful 4-0 de­feat ag­ainst Chel­sea at Stam­ford Bridge in late Oct­ober, wi­th Pedro, Ga­ry Ca­hill, Eden Haz­ard, and N’Golo Kante scor­ing the goals for the Lon­doners. But this was fol­lowed by an un­defeated run of eight Pre­miership mat­ches, in­clud­ing four wins, which took them to sixth place in the standings.

Man­chester Uni­ted had beaten Sun­der­land 3-0 at Old Traf­ford in the cor­res­pond­ing fix­ture the pre­vi­ous sea­son and were ex­pec­ted to win all three points. As for the in­jury front, Jose Mou­rinho had to cope with­out Eng­land de­fender Lu­ke Shaw be­cause of a groin strain, but Ar­meni­an mid­fielder Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an was back in mat­ch ac­tion. Des­pite Man­chester Uni­ted dom­in­at­ing from the kick-off, the ho­me sup­port­ers had to wait for al­most forty min­utes for the fir­st score. Wi­th the fir­st pe­riod ap­proach­ing its lattter sta­ges, Uni­ted fi­nally staked them­selves to a 1-0 ad­vant­age as Da­ley Bli­nd latched on to a pass from Ibrahimovic be­fore fir­ing a low shot pa­st Sun­der­land and Eng­land U21 goal­keeper Jor­dan Pick­ford and in­to the bot­tom right-hand cor­ner of the net wi­th thirty-nine min­utes gone of the ha­lf. Man­chester Uni­ted con­tin­ued to en­joy plenty of pos­ses­sion in the sec­ond frame and Ibrahimovic and Mkhitary­an re­gistered a goal apiece in the 82nd and 86th min­utes of the tie re­spect­ively be­fore Fa­bio Borini hit a late con­sol­a­tion for The Black Cats in stop­page time. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Phil Jones, Mar­cos Rojo, Da­ley Bli­nd, An­tonio Va­lencia, Paul Po­gba, Ju­an Ma­ta, Jesse Lin­gard, Mi­chael Car­rick, An­der Her­rera, Zlatan Ibrahimovic. Sub­stitutes: Hen­rikh Mkhitary­an, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, An­thony Mar­tial, Chris Small­ing, Mat­teo Dar­mian, Mar­cus Rash­ford, Ser­gio Rom­ero. Sun­der­land Te­am: Jor­dan Pick­ford, Billy Jones, Patrick van Aan­holt, Ja­son De­nay­er, Pa­py Djilobodji, Lam­ine Kone, Se­basti­an Larsson, Didi­er Ndong, Fa­bio Borini, Jer­main De­foe, Vic­tor Anichebe. Sub­stitutes: Ge­orge Hon­ey­man, Don­ald Love, Wahbi Khazri, John O’Shea, El­li­ot Em­b­leton, Joel As­oro, Vito Mannone.

 

Daley Blind Quickfacts

Da­ley Bli­nd was han­ded his de­but for Man­chester Uni­ted by Louis van Gaal in a 4-0 win ag­ainst Pre­mier Lea­gue new boys Queens Park Ran­gers at Old Traf­ford on the 4th of Septem­ber 2014.

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