Manchester U 2 Norwich 0

Man­chester Uni­ted 2 Nor­wich City 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Oct­ober 1, 2011. Man­chester Uni­ted earned them­selves a 2-0 win ag­ainst Pre­miership new­comers Nor­wich City. The East Anglia club de­fen­ded well be­fore the break, but goals from Oli­veira An­der­son and Dan­ny Wel­beck in the sec­ond pe­riod saw Uni­ted run­ning out 2-0 winners.

It was a much changed Man­chester Uni­ted si­de which took to the field as de­mand­ing Old Traf­ford man­ager Sir Al­ex Fer­guson had made as many as sev­en al­ter­a­tions to the te­am from the dis­ap­point­ing 3-3 Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue Group Sta­ge draw wi­th Swiss Cham­pi­ons FC Basel at The Theatre of Dreams four days earli­er. Uni­ted had dropped their fir­st Pre­mier Lea­gue points of the 2011-12 sea­son wi­th a un­ex­pec­ted 1-1 draw ag­ainst Sto­ke City at Brit­an­nia Sta­dium the pre­vi­ous week­end, wi­th Pe­ter Crouch lev­el­ling the score for The Pot­ters in the sec­ond ha­lf af­ter Lu­is Nani had giv­en Ferguson´s men the lead be­fore the break. Nor­wich City, mean­while, had nar­rowly beaten Sun­der­land 2-1 at Car­row Road where Le­on Bar­nett and Ste­ve Mor­is­on fou­nd the net for The Ca­nar­ies, whi­le Kier­an Richard­son re­cor­ded a late con­sol­a­tion goal for The Black Cats. Al­though Man­chester Uni­ted were mas­sive fa­vour­ites to win the clash wi­th Nor­wich, the yel­low shirts nev­er buckled in the face of the opponent´s repu­ta­tion and the ho­me play­ers struggled hard to make an impression.

The Nor­folk out­fit star­ted the mat­ch on a bright note and the vis­it­ors should have taken the lead al­ready in 17th min­ute of the con­test when Welsh flank­man Ste­ve Mor­is­on out­man­euvered North­ern Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al de­fender Jon­ny Evans be­fore he shot wide from the edge of the eight­een-yard area. The en­counter was ev­entually bro­ught to life twenty min­utes in­to the sec­ond pe­riod as vet­er­an club stal­wart Ry­an Gig­gs took a flag-kick from the left si­de of the field which Brazili­an mid­field com­batant Oli­veira An­der­son head­ed pa­st John Rud­dy in the Nor­wich goal to make the sco­reline read 1-0 in fa­vour of Man­chester Uni­ted. Fi­nally, dur­ing the clos­ing sta­ges of the ga­me, a dan­ger­ous low cross ball from un­selfish work­horse Ji-Sung Park fou­nd sec­ond pe­riod sub­sti­tute Dan­ny Wel­beck who sco­red his fifth goal of the 2011-12 cam­paign when the strong run­ning stri­ker tap­ped in the ball from clo­se ran­ge to se­cure Man­chester United´s 19th con­sec­ut­ive ho­me vic­tory in the Pre­mier Lea­gue. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: An­ders Linde­gaard, Phil Jones, Jon­ny Evans, Pat­rice Ev­ra, An­tonio Va­lencia, Lu­is Nani, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Oli­veira An­der­son, Ji-Sung Park, Way­ne Roo­ney, Javi­er Her­nandez. Sub­stitutes: Da­vid de Gea, Rio Fer­dinand, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ry­an Gig­gs, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Mi­chael Owen. Nor­wich City Te­am: John Rud­dy, Rus­sell Mar­tin, Le­on Bar­nett, Marc Tier­ney, Kyle Naugh­ton, Brad­ley John­son, An­thony Pilk­ing­ton, Wes­ley Hoo­la­han, Ste­ve Mor­is­on, Da­vid Fox, El­li­ott Ben­nett. Sub­stitutes: Ad­am Drury, An­drew Crofts, Drew Sur­man, Grant Holt, Simeon Jack­son, Chris Mar­tin, De­clan Rudd.

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