Manchester U 3 Arsenal 1

Steve Coppell

Man­chester Uni­ted 3 Ar­senal 1, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Fir­st Di­vi­sion, Oct­ober 18, 1975. Man­chester Uni­ted emer­ged 3-1 win­ners ag­ainst old rivals Ar­senal cour­tesy of a brace by wing­er Ste­ve Cop­pell either si­de of the break and a sec­ond ha­lf goal from stri­ker Stu­art “Pan­cho” Pearson. 

Man­chester Uni­ted had star­ted the 1975-76 cam­paign on an ex­cel­lent note and were sit­ting sec­ond in the Fir­st Di­vi­sion ta­ble ahead of the meet­ing wi­th Ar­senal at Old Traf­ford. Man­chester Uni­ted wor­ked them­selves in­to the lead when Ste­ve Cop­pell power­ed a hard low left-footed shot from out­side the pen­alty area which flew pa­st Ar­senal goal­keeper Jim­my Rim­mer and in­to the bot­tom right cor­ner of the net five min­utes pa­st the ha­lf-hour ma­rk. The Gun­ners re­fused to hang their heads and ma­naged to equal­ise thanks to a goal from Ed­die Kel­ly in the 39th min­ute of the ga­me, on­ly for Man­chester Uni­ted to re­gain their ad­vant­age thro­ugh Stu­art Pear­son who lashed a venom­ous ef­fort from just in­side the eight­een-yard box pa­st Rim­mer and in­to the net three min­utes af­ter the in­ter­val. Man­chester Uni­ted kept on go­ing for­ward and had their third goal of the af­ter­noon when Cop­pell bril­liantly drove the ball in­to the top left cor­ner of the net from a few yards out­side the area eight min­utes pa­st the hour ma­rk. Af­ter beat­ing Ar­senal 3-1 at Old Traf­ford, Man­chester Uni­ted re­turned to the top of the ta­ble at the ex­pense of Queens Park Ran­gers who suf­fered an un­ex­pec­ted 1-0 de­feat ag­ainst re­leg­a­tion bat­tling Burn­ley at Turf Moor. At the oth­er end of the stand­ings were Shef­field Uni­ted who went down 2-0 ag­ainst Sto­ke City at Bramall Lane. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Al­ex Step­ney, Stew­art Hou­s­ton, Jim­my Nich­oll, Mar­tin Bu­chan, Bri­an Green­hoff, Ger­ry Da­ly, Ste­ve Cop­pell, Tom­my Jack­son, Stu­art Pear­son, Lou Ma­cari, Sam­my Mc­Ilroy. Sub­stitutes: No­ne. Ar­senal te­am: Jim­my Rim­mer, Sam­my Nel­son, Da­vid O’Leary, Pat Rice, Pe­ter Simp­son, Alan Ball, Liam Bra­dy, Al­ex Cropley, Frank Stapleton, Bri­an Kidd, Ed­die Kel­ly. Sub­stitutes: None.

 

Steve Coppell Quickfacts

Ste­ve Cop­pell amassed thir­teen goals in thirty-eight Foot­ball Lea­gue ap­pear­ances Tran­mere Rov­ers be­fore he was sold to Man­chester Uni­ted for a trans­fer fee of £40,000 in Feb­ruary 1975.

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