Man United 5 Sunderland 0

Man­chester Uni­ted 5 Sun­der­land 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Dec­ember 21, 1996. Af­ter snatch­ing a de­served 1-1 draw ag­ainst Shef­field Wed­nesday at Hills­bor­ough three days earli­er, Man­chester Uni­ted out­classed Sun­der­land 5-0 at Old Traf­ford cour­tesy of a brace each by Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer and Eric Can­tona plus one goal from Nicky Butt.

In the pre­vi­ous meet­ing be­tween Man­chester Uni­ted and Sun­der­land on the 16th of Jan­uary 1996, The Reds had beaten the Wearsiders 2-1 in an FA Cup Third Ro­und Re­play at Roker Park and they were odds on fa­vour­ites to win this ga­me too. Uni­ted, who dom­in­ated the mat­ch from the out­set, got them­selves ahead thanks to an op­por­tun­ist­ic head­er from Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer five min­utes pa­st the hour-ma­rk and then doubled their ad­vant­age just eight min­utes la­ter as Eric Can­tona con­ver­ted a pen­alty won by Nicky Butt. Wi­th the sec­ond pe­riod pro­ceed­ing in ex­actly the same man­ner as the fir­st, Man­chester Uni­ted had their third goal three min­utes fol­low­ing the break when a long throw from Pe­ter Schmei­chel was picked up by Sol­skjaer who pla­ced a low ef­fort pa­st away goal­keeper Li­onel Pe­rez and in­to the bot­tom left-hand cor­ner of the net. And Uni­ted stret­ched their lead even fur­ther af­ter fifty-nine min­utes as Butt head­ed ho­me well taken a cor­ner by Ry­an Gig­gs be­fore Can­tona fin­ished off the scor­ing in the eighti­eth min­ute of the one-sided tie wi­th a mag­ni­fi­cent lob that left Pe­rez watch­ing as the ball went in­to the top left-hand cor­ner of the goal. The com­pre­hens­ive win over The Roker­ites was not on­ly a mor­ale boost for Man­chester Uni­ted, but it also lif­ted them in­to the top four in the Pre­mier Lea­gue and to with­in six points of lead­ers Liver­pool. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Pe­ter Schmei­chel, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Da­vid May, Ga­ry Pal­lister, De­nis Ir­win, Phil Ne­ville, Nicky Butt, Paul Scho­les, Eric Can­tona, Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer, Ry­an Gig­gs. Sub­stitutes: Bri­an Mc­Clair, Karel Pobor­sky, Ben Thorn­ley. Sun­der­land Te­am: Li­onel Pe­rez, Gar­eth Hall, Dari­usz Ku­bicki, Andy Melville, Rich­ard Ord, Mi­chael Gray, Paul Bracewell, Craig Rus­sell, Da­vid Kel­ly, Kev­in Ball, Al­ex Rae. Sub­stitutes: Mi­chael Bridges, Ste­ve Ag­new, Paul Stewart.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted be­at Sun­der­land 4-1 in a Foot­ball Lea­gue fix­ture at Old Traf­ford on the 18th of Jan­uary 1969 thro­ugh a hat-trick by De­nis Law and one goal from strik­ing part­ner Ge­orge Best.

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