Man United 4 Sunderland 1

Ruud Van Nistelrooy

Man­chester Uni­ted 4 Sun­der­land 1, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Feb­ruary 2, 2002. Ta­ble top­pers Man­chester Uni­ted fol­lowed up a com­pre­hens­ive 4-0 tri­umph over near­by rivals Bol­ton Wan­derers at Ree­bok Sta­dium four days earli­er by beat­ing Sun­der­land 4-1 at Old Traf­ford where all the goals were sco­red dur­ing the fir­st ha­lf of the one-sided game.

Reign­ing Pre­mier Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted had com­fort­ably de­feated Sun­der­land 3–1 at The Sta­dium of Light in the re­verse meet­ing of the 2001-02 cam­paign cour­tesy of a goal each by Ry­an Gig­gs and Andy Cole plus an own goal from Slov­aki­an in­ter­na­tion­al de­fender Stan­islav Varga, and The Red Dev­ils had no prob­lems in gain­ing an­oth­er three points ag­ainst The Black Cats. The ho­me te­am stormed in­to the lead af­ter just six min­utes of play as Phil Ne­ville raced onto a mag­ni­fi­cent thro­ugh ball from Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer be­fore he sent a low ef­fort pa­st Sun­der­land and Aus­tria U21 shot stop­per Jur­gen Macho and in­to the goal. The Wearsiders equal­ised thanks to a twenty-five-yard strike from Kev­in Phil­lips in the twelfth min­ute of the clash, but Man­chester Uni­ted re­gained their ad­vant­age thir­teen min­utes la­ter when Da­vid Beck­ham fou­nd the tar­get wi­th an un­stoppable free-kick. The Old Traf­ford men car­ried on at­tack­ing and were re­war­ded for their of­fens­ive ef­forts as Ruud van Nistel­rooy sco­red wi­th a left-foot vol­ley on twenty-eight min­utes be­fore the trig­ger happy marks­man ad­ded a fourth goal for The Reds from the pen­alty spot one min­ute ahead of the in­ter­val, and wi­th no fur­ther goals in the sec­ond ha­lf the ga­me fin­ished wi­th a 4-1 win for the hosts. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Fa­bi­en Bar­thez, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Lau­rent Blanc, Mi­kael Sil­vestre, Phil Ne­ville, Da­vid Beck­ham, Ry­an Gig­gs, Roy Ke­ane, Paul Scho­les, Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer, Ruud Van Nistel­rooy. Sub­stitutes: Diego For­lan, John O’Shea , Nicky Butt, De­nis Ir­win. Roy Car­roll. Sun­der­land Te­am: Jur­gen Macho, Bernt Haas, Joachim Bjorklund, Jody Crad­dock, Stan­islav Varga, Kev­in Kil­bane, Dar­ren Wil­li­ams, Mi­chael Gray, Ja­son Mc­At­eer, Clau­dio Reyna, Kev­in Phil­lips. Sub­stitutes: Ju­lio Arca, Ge­orge Mc­Cart­ney, Ni­all Quinn, Da­vid Bel­lion, Mica­hel Ingham.

 

Ruud van Nistelrooy Quickfacts

Ruud van Nistel­rooy ap­peared for Dutch clubs Den Bosch, Heer­en­veen, and PSV Eind­hoven be­fore he joi­ned Man­chester Uni­ted for a trans­fer fee in the re­gion of £19 mil­lion at the start of the 2001-02 sea­son. Fol­low­ing 95 Pre­mier Lea­gue goals in 150 mat­ches for Uni­ted, he was sold to Re­al Mad­rid for an es­tim­ated fee of €14 mil­lion in the sum­mer of 2006 and sco­red 46 goals in 68 La Liga ga­mes for The Me­ringues be­fore he sig­ned wi­th Bundes­liga club Ham­burger SV mid­way thro­ugh the 2009-10 cam­paign. Van Nistel­rooy la­ter played for Malaga where he fin­ished his goal scor­ing ca­reer at the end of the 2011-12 season.

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