Everton 3 Manchester U 0

Ever­ton 3 Man­chester Uni­ted 0, Good­ison Park, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, April 26, 2015. Des­pite dom­in­at­ing pos­ses­sion for the bet­ter part of the mat­ch, Louis van Gaal´s boys suc­cumbed to a 3-0 Pre­mier Lea­gue de­feat ag­ainst Ever­ton. Ja­mes Mc­Carthy and John Stones sco­red one goal each in the fir­st ha­lf be­fore Kev­in Mir­al­las ad­ded a third af­ter the break.

Third po­si­tioned Man­chester Uni­ted came in­to this Sunday en­counter on the back of an evenly con­tested 1-0 de­feat ag­ainst Pre­mier Lea­gue ta­ble top­pers Chel­sea at Stam­ford Bridge. Twelfth pla­ced Ever­ton, on the oth­er hand, had over­come re­leg­a­tion threat­ened Burn­ley by 1-0 at Good­ison Park in their pre­vi­ous Pre­miership ga­me cour­tesy of a fir­st ha­lf goal from Bel­gi­um in­ter­na­tion­al wing­er Kev­in Mir­al­las. In the cor­res­pond­ing meet­ing of the 2014-15 cam­paign, The Reds had nar­rowly edged out The Ever­to­ni­ans by 2-1 at their Old Traf­ford base, wi­th new boys An­gel Di Mar­ia and Ra­damel Fal­cao scor­ing for the ho­me te­am, and Ste­ven Na­i­s­mith find­ing the back of the net for the blue shirts. As for in­jury prob­lems, Man­chester Uni­ted man­ager Louis van Gaal had to cope with­out the play­ing ser­vices of de­fenders Phil Jones, Mar­cos Rojo, and Ra­fael da Silva, and mid­field vet­er­an Mi­chael Car­rick, where­as Ever­ton gaf­fer Rob­erto Ben­itez was mis­sing ver­sat­ile de­fender Bry­an Oviedo, mid­fielder Dar­ron Gib­son, and wing­ers Aiden McGeady and Ste­ven Pienaar.

The Mer­sey­siders got them­selves in­to an early lead thro­ugh Re­pub­lic of Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al Ja­mes Mc­Carthy who net­ted wi­th a cool fin­ish af­ter a mere five min­utes of ac­tion, and the hosts pro­duced the sec­ond goal of the clash when ex-Barns­ley de­fender John Stones head­ed ho­me a well-de­livered cor­ner-kick from Leigh­ton Baines some ten min­utes be­fore the sound of the ha­lf-time whistle. Then, ag­ainst the flow of play, Mir­al­las latched onto a long ball by Three Li­ons mid­fielder Ross Barkley and fin­ished off pa­st Man­chester Uni­ted shot stop­per Da­vid de Gea to score the fi­nal goal of the af­ter­noon wi­th six­teen min­utes re­maining of the fix­ture. Af­ter suf­fer­ing a 3-0 loss at the hands of Ever­ton at Good­ison Park, Man­chester Uni­ted were now down to fourth place in the Pre­mier Lea­gue ta­ble wi­th 65 points col­lec­ted from 34 mat­ches. Ro­man Abramovich´s Chel­sea were top­ping the stand­ings wi­th 77 points won from 33 ap­pear­ances and were as much as ten points in front of sec­ond po­si­tioned Man­chester City and Ar­senal in third spot. Louis van Gaal: “We have al­ways had more fight­ing spir­it on the pitch, and I think that this is the fir­st mat­ch which the oth­er te­am have shown more of that than us.” Ever­ton Te­am: Timothy How­ard, John Stones, Leigh­ton Baines, Gar­eth Bar­ry, Seamus Cole­man, Phil Ja­gielka, Ross Barkley, Aar­on Len­non, Ro­melu Lu­kaku, Ja­mes Mc­Carthy, Le­on Os­man. Sub­stitutes: Ant­olin Al­caraz, Lu­ke Gar­bu­tt, Muhamed Be­s­ic, Kev­in Mir­al­las, Ste­ven Na­i­s­mith, Arouna Kone, Joel Robles. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Pad­dy McNair, Lu­ke Shaw, Chris Small­ing, An­tonio Va­lencia, Da­ley Bli­nd, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, An­der Her­rera, Way­ne Roo­ney, Ju­an Ma­ta, Ash­ley Young. Sub­stitutes: An­gel Di Mar­ia, Ra­damel Fal­cao, Tyler Black­ett, Ad­nan Januzaj, An­dreas Pe­reira, Robin van Per­sie, Vic­tor Valdes.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted be­at Ever­ton 1-0 at Old Traf­ford the Pre­mier Lea­gue on the 23rd of April 2011. Uni­ted came clo­se on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions in the fir­st ha­lf and were un­lucky not to have sco­red be­fore the break. Af­ter the re­start, Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s title chasers re­mained dan­ger­ous and had their win­ning goal when Javi­er Her­nandez head­ed ho­me a cross by An­tonio Va­lencia wi­th six min­utes left of the tie.

UNITED FEATURES UNITED REPORTS UNITED REVIEWS UNITED STORIES

Front Page