Manchester U 2 Liverpool 1

Man­chester Uni­ted 2 Liver­pool 1, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Mar­ch 21, 2010. Man­chester Uni­ted came from be­hind to be­at Liver­pool to go to the top of the ta­ble. Des­pite a nerve wrack­ing end­ing, Uni­ted ma­naged to hold on to their lead and they ev­entually over­came The An­field­ers by 2-1 cour­tesy of one goals from Way­ne Roo­ney and Ji-Sung Park. 

Af­ter trash­ing mid-ta­blers Ful­ham 3-0 at Old Traf­ford sev­en days earli­er, Man­chester Uni­ted pre­pared to play host to Ra­fael Benitez´s Liver­pool. The Mer­sey­siders had ma­naged to be­at Uni­ted by 2-0 at An­field thanks to sec­ond ha­lf goals from strik­ing part­ners Fer­nando Torres and Da­vid Ngog in the last meet­ing be­tween the two clubs, and The Man­chester Reds were out for re­venge in this one. Due to in­jur­ies, Man­chester Uni­ted man­ager Sir Al­ex Fer­guson was with­out sev­er­al play­ers for the ga­me ag­ainst Liver­pool, in­clud­ing de­fenders Wes Bro­wn and John O’Shea; mid­field­ers Owen Har­greaves and Oliv­er­ia An­der­son; and for­wards Mi­chael Owen and Fe­d­erico Ma­cheda. Ferguson´s pro­vi­sion­al squad con­tained goal­keep­ers Ed­win van der Sar and To­masz Kusz­czak: de­fenders Fa­bio da Silva, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Jon­ny Evans, Pat­rice Ev­ra, and An­tonio Va­lencia; mid­field­ers Mi­chael Car­rick, Dar­ron Gib­son, Paul Scho­les, Ji-sung Park, Ry­an Gig­gs, Gab­riel Ober­tan, and Lu­is Nani; and for­wards Way­ne Roo­ney, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Mi­chael Owen, Dan­ny Wel­beck, and Mame Biram Diouf.

As ex­pec­ted be­fore the ga­me no quart­er was giv­en by either si­de dur­ing the clas­sic North West Der­by be­tween Man­chester Uni­ted and Liver­pool. In the fifth min­ute of ac­tion, Liver­pool for­ward Fer­nando Torres con­tin­ued his re­mark­able scor­ing re­cord ag­ainst Uni­ted when he made it one goal up for the vis­it­ors wi­th an as­ton­ish­ing head­er. But five min­utes la­ter, mat­ch of­fi­cial How­ard Webb awar­ded Man­chester Uni­ted a pen­alty as An­tonio Valen­ica was bro­ught down by fel­low So­uth Amer­ic­an Javi­er Mascher­ano in­side the eight­een-yard box. Way­ne Rooney’s sub­sequent spot-kick was su­perbly saved by Liver­pool shot stop­per Pepe Re­ina, on­ly for the in­form stri­ker to score his thirty-third goal of the 2009-10 Pre­mier Lea­gue cam­paign from the re­bound. As the pen­du­lum swung one way and then the oth­er, Man­chester Uni­ted ev­entually went in­to the lead for the fir­st time dur­ing the der­by en­counter wi­th a truly breath­tak­ing dis­play when Roo­ney fou­nd hard run­ning play­maker Dar­ren Fletch­er who ma­naged to cross the ball per­fectly for So­uth Korean mid­field en­gin­eer Ji-Sung Park to score the win­ning goal wi­th a fly­ing text-book head­er in the four­teenth min­ute of sec­ond pe­riod play.

Fol­low­ing the win over Liver­pool, Man­chester Uni­ted were now top­ping the Pre­miership ta­ble wi­th sixty-nine points from thirty-one mat­ches, two points clear of sec­ond pla­ced Ar­senal, and four ahead of Chel­sea in third spot. Sir Al­ex Fer­guson: “A ga­me like that, it has al­ways be­en feisty. Bo­th Man­chester Uni­ted and Liver­pool, wi­th their pride and his­tory, are go­ing to com­pete. And I do not think that it got to a ser­i­ous point at any sta­ge.” Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ed­win van der Sar, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ga­ry Ne­ville, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Rio Fer­dinand, An­tonio Va­lencia, Lu­is Nani, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Ji-Sung Park, Mi­chael Car­rick, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Ra­fael da Silva, Jon­ny Evans, Ry­an Gig­gs, Paul Scho­les, Gab­riel Ober­tan, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, To­masz Kusz­czak. Liver­pool Te­am: Pepe Re­ina, Dan­iel Ag­ger, Glen John­son, Jam­ie Car­ra­gh­er, Lu­cas Leiva, Emili­ano In­sua, Javi­er Mascher­ano, Ste­ven Ger­rard, Maxi Rodrig­uez, Dirk Kuyt, Fer­nando Torres. Sub­stitutes: Mar­tin Kel­ly, Sot­iris Kyr­giakos, Al­berto Aquilani, Yossi Benayoun, Ry­an Ba­bel, Da­vid N’Gog, Diego Cavalieri.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted trashed Liver­pool 4-0 at Old Traf­ford on the 5th of April 2003 thro­ugh two pen­alty goals from Ruud Van Nistel­rooy and a goal each from Ry­an Gig­gs and Ole Gun­nar Solskjaer.

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