Manchester Utd 1 Fulham 0

Wayne Rooney

Man­chester Uni­ted 1 Ful­ham 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Mar­ch 26, 2012. Des­pite con­trolling pos­ses­sion for large parts of the ga­me Man­chester Uni­ted could on­ly de­feat Ful­ham 1-0 at ho­me. The in­form Way­ne Roo­ney sco­red the win­ning goal for Uni­ted when the stri­ker swept in a pull-back from de­fender Jon­ny Evans in the 42nd min­ute of play.

Man­chester Uni­ted were mis­sing the play­ing ser­vices of Lu­is Nani for their Pre­miership clash ag­ainst Ful­ham at Old Traf­ford on the last Monday of Mar­ch 2012. The Por­tugal in­ter­na­tion­al had suf­fered a foot in­jury whi­le train­ing at Car­ring­ton, and the twenty-five-year-old flank­man had be­en ruled out of fir­st te­am ac­tion for the rest of the month. Also on the in­jury list were de­fenders Wes Bro­wn and John O’Shea; mid­fielder Oli­veira An­der­son; and for­ward Mi­chael Owen, but wing­er An­tonio Va­lencia was back from a ham­string in­jury. The Craven Cot­tage club, for their part, were with­out de­fender Zdenek Gry­gera and mid­fielder Ste­ve Sid­well, who were bo­th side­lined wi­th long-term in­jur­ies. Reign­ing Pre­mier Lea­gue Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted had won el­ev­en, drawn one, and lost two mat­ches at their Old Traf­ford ho­me so far in the 2011-12 sea­son, whi­le Ful­ham had won two, drawn five, and lost sev­en ga­mes on away gro­und. In the re­verse meet­ing be­tween Man­chester Uni­ted and Ful­ham at Craven Cot­tage on the 21st of Dec­ember 2011, The Reds had out­classed The Whi­tes 5–0 cour­tesy of a goal each from Dan­ny Wel­beck, Nani, Ry­an Gig­gs, Way­ne Roo­ney, and Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov re­spect­ively, and Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s title chasers entered the fix­ture as mas­sive favourites.

The West Lon­doners, who had not gain­ed a single point at Old Traf­ford since a 3-1 Pre­miership vic­tory on the 25th of Oct­ober 2003, began the Monday en­counter wi­th high spir­its and star­ted the bet­ter early on, but as the mat­ch evolved, Man­chester Uni­ted be­came more com­fort­able in at­tack and the vis­it­ors re­lied heav­ily on Aus­trali­an shot stop­per Ma­rk Schwar­zer to make nu­mer­ous saves. The men in red shirts went on to be­siege the Ful­ham goal and the ho­me si­de ev­entually broke the de­fens­ive dead­lock when a cross from Three Li­ons in­ter­na­tion­al Ash­ley Young fou­nd cent­ral de­fender Jon­ny Evans who ma­naged to turn the ball back for Roo­ney to ham­mer ho­me from sev­en yards out three min­utes be­fore the sound of the ha­lf-time whistle. Man­chester Uni­ted con­trolled the pos­ses­sion of the ball for large parts of the sec­ond pe­riod, but the hosts were un­able to add an­oth­er goal to their lead. As for the Craven Cot­tagers, the vis­it­ing te­am rarely look­ed like get­ting any­thing from the ga­me from the very mo­ment Way­ne Roo­ney opened the scor­ing ac­count for Uni­ted. Af­ter edging out Mar­tin Jol´s Ful­ham by 1-0, Man­chester Uni­ted re­mained top of the Pre­mier Lea­gue ta­ble, three points in front of sec­ond pla­ced Man­chester City, and as much as fif­teen points ahead of Ar­senal in third spot. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Ra­fael, Jon­athan Evans, Rio Fer­dinand, An­tonio Va­lencia, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ry­an Gig­gs, Ash­ley Young, Way­ne Roo­ney, Dan­ny Wel­beck. Sub­stitutes: Ben Amos, Chris Small­ing, Phil Jones, Tom Clev­er­ley, Paul Scho­les, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Javi­er Her­nandez. Ful­ham Te­am: Ma­rk Schwar­zer, Aar­on Hug­hes, John Arne Riise, Brede Hange­land, Steph­en Kel­ly, Moussa Dem­bele, Ma­ha­madou Diarra, Ker­im Frei, Clint De­mp­sey, Dami­en Duff, Pavel Po­grebnyak. Sub­stitutes: Da­vid Stock­dale, Bry­an Ruiz, Mat­thew Briggs, Phil­ippe Sen­der­os, Dick­son Etuhu, Dan­ny Murphy, Mar­cello Trotta.

 

Wayne Rooney Quickfacts

Way­ne Roo­ney sco­red a re­spect­able 34 goals in 43 fir­st class ap­pear­ances in all com­pet­i­tions for Man­chester Uni­ted dur­ing the 2011-12 cam­paign, in­clud­ing a hat-trick ag­ainst West Ham United. 

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