Manchester U 2 Swansea 1

Rio Ferdinand

Man­chester Uni­ted 2 Swansea City 1, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, May 12, 2013. Man­chester Uni­ted took the lead ag­ainst Swansea City cour­tesy of a goal from Javi­er “Chi­charito” Her­nandez five min­utes ahead of the ha­lf-time break. Four min­utes in­to the sec­ond pe­riod, Mi­guel Pe­rez Cuesta ma­naged to equal­ise for City, on­ly for Rio Fer­dinand to re­gister the win­ner for the red shir­ted men wi­th just three min­utes left of nor­mal time.

The 2-1 Barclays Pre­mier Lea­gue vic­tory ag­ainst Swansea City was Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s fi­nal ga­me in charge at the Old Traf­ford Sta­dium. Co­in­cid­ent­ally, it was also Paul Scholes´s last ho­me ga­me for Man­chester Uni­ted. Mex­ic­an stri­ker Javi­er Her­nandez came clo­se to put­ting the ball in the net al­ready in the fifth min­ute of the pen­ul­tim­ate fix­ture of the 2012-13 sea­son, but his left footed shot hit the un­der­side of the cross­bar. As the fir­st frame wore on, The Reds opened the scor­ing ac­count when the very same man took ad­vant­age of a mis­timed Ash­ley Wil­li­ams clear­ance to poke the ball in­to the back of the net clo­se to ha­lf-time. The Swansea play­ers fou­ght back, tho­ugh, and their of­fens­ive ef­forts were duly re­war­ded as a vol­ley from Michu be­at Uni­ted shot stop­per Da­vid de Gea four min­utes af­ter the re­sump­tion of pro­ceed­ings. And thir­teen min­utes la­ter Swansea and Spain in­ter­na­tion­al wing­er Pablo Her­nandez al­most hit a sec­ond goal for the Liberty Sta­dium te­am, but his try was bril­liantly saved by fel­low coun­try­man De Gea. Then, in the 66th min­ute of the tie, Brazili­an mid­field play­maker Oli­veira An­der­son re­placed Scho­les who left the field to a stand­ing ova­tion from the 75,000 strong crowd at The Theatre of Dreams. Fi­nally, in the 87th min­ute of the last ho­me clash of the cam­paign, for­mer Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al de­fender Rio Fer­dinand power­ed the ball pa­st Swansea goal­tender Ger­hard Trem­mel and in­to the net from clo­se ran­ge to hand Man­chester Uni­ted a de­served 2-1 win ag­ainst The Swans. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Phil Jones, Rio Fer­dinand, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Paul Scho­les, Mi­chael Car­rick, Shinji Ka­gawa, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Robin van Per­sie, Javi­er Her­nandez. Sub­stitutes: Jon­athan Evans, Va­lencia, Al­ex­an­der Buttner, An­der­son, Tom Clev­er­ley, Ry­an Gig­gs, An­ders Linde­gaard. Swansea City Te­am: Ger­hard Trem­mel, Chico, Ash­ley Wil­li­ams, Neil Tay­lor, Dwight Tiend­alli, Le­on Brit­ton, Jon­athan de Guz­man, Pablo Her­nandez, Way­ne Rout­ledge, Nat­han Dyer, Michu. Sub­stitutes: An­gel Ran­gel, Garry Monk, Ben Dav­ies, Kemy Agus­tien, Ro­land Lamah, Etey Shechter, Da­vid Cornell.

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