Manchester Utd 2 Wigan 0

Man­chester Uni­ted 2 Wi­gan Ath­let­ic 0, Old Traf­ford, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Nov­ember 20, 2010. Man­chester Uni­ted com­fort­ably de­feated Wi­gan Ath­let­ic by a 2-0 score at Old Traf­ford where Three Li­ons in­ter­na­tion­al Way­ne Roo­ney re­ceived a mixed wel­come from the ho­me sup­port­ers when the prod­ig­al son entered the field as a sub­sti­tute in the 56th min­ute of the clash to make his re­turn to the fir­st te­am from an ankle in­jury af­ter his con­tract row.

Man­chester Uni­ted had kicked off the 2010-11 Pre­mier Lea­gue cam­paign wi­th a highly pro­mising 3-0 tri­umph ag­ainst re­cently pro­moted New­castle Uni­ted at The Theatre of Dreams, fol­lowed by a hard-fou­ght 2-2 away draw ag­ainst Ful­ham at Craven Cot­tage. Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s title con­tenders then de­feated West Ham Uni­ted 3-0 at Old Traf­ford be­fore they drew 3-3 ag­ainst Ever­ton at Good­ison Park. Af­ter edging out Liver­pool by 3-2 at ho­me in mid-Septem­ber, Man­chester Uni­ted went on a three-ga­me draw­ing streak which was fol­lowed by a three-fix­ture win­ning streak, which in turn was fol­lowed by a two-mat­ch draw­ing streak. In the cor­res­pond­ing meet­ing of the 2009-10 sea­son, Uni­ted had trashed Wi­gan Ath­let­ic 5-0 at Old Traf­ford and they were clear fa­vour­ites to claim all three points ag­ainst The Lat­ics. As for the in­jury list, Man­chester Uni­ted had to make do with­out the ser­vices of key play­ers Oli­veira An­der­son, Owen Har­greaves, An­tonio Va­lencia, and Mi­chael Owen, but Eng­land stri­ker Way­ne Roo­ney was back  af­ter re­cov­er­ing from an ankle problem.

French in­ter­na­tion­al de­fender Pat­rice Ev­ra opened the scor­ing when he head­ed The Reds in front from an ex­cel­lent cross by Ji-Sung Park a few sec­onds be­fore the break. Whi­le Wi­gan en­joyed the bet­ter of the fir­st ha­lf op­por­tun­it­ies, Man­chester Uni­ted saw much more of the ball af­ter the re­start. As ref­er­ee Mi­ke Atkin­son was either filled wi­th Dar­win­ism or else had got his whistle choked up wi­th mud, Ant­olin Al­caraz fi­nally re­ceived his sec­ond book­ing af­ter a fool­ish chal­lenge on Dar­ren Fletch­er in the 59th min­ute, whi­le Hugo Rodal­lega was ordered off af­ter a mind­less at­tack on Ra­fael da Silva a few mo­ments la­ter. Javi­er Her­nandez ev­entually came on for Mi­chael Car­rick mid­way thro­ugh the sec­ond ha­lf, and the leth­al stri­ker sealed the points for Man­chester Uni­ted as he head­ed ho­me a good cross from Ra­fael af­ter 77 min­utes of ac­tion. His fel­low sec­ond ha­lf sub­sti­tute Way­ne Roo­ney should have sco­red in the dy­ing mo­ments of the mat­ch, but his ef­fort went straight at away goal­keeper Ali Al Hab­si. Af­ter de­feat­ing neigh­bouring Wi­gan 2-0, Man­chester Uni­ted were now level on points wi­th fel­low Pre­miership title chal­lengers Chel­sea, who re­mained top on goal dif­fer­ence. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Ed­win van der Sar, Ra­fael da Silva, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Rio Fer­dinand, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Dar­ren Fletch­er, Lu­is Nani, Mi­chael Car­rick, Fe­d­erico Ma­cheda, Ji-Sung Park, Gab­riel Ober­tan. Sub­stitutes: Jon­athan Evans, Way­ne Roo­ney, John O’Shea, Ry­an Gig­gs, Paul Scho­les, Javi­er Her­nandez, To­masz Kusz­czak. Wi­gan Ath­let­ic Te­am: Ali Al Hab­si, Ant­olin Al­caraz, Maynor Figueroa, Ste­ve Go­houri, Ste­ven Cald­well, Ron­nie Stam, Jordi Go­mez, Charles N’Zo­g­bia, Mo Dia­me, Hugo Rodal­lega, Hendry Tho­mas. Sub­stitutes: Mi­ke Pol­litt, Ja­mes McAr­thur, Ben Wat­son, Cal­lum Mc­Man­a­man, Vic­tor Moses, Mauro Boselli, Franco Di Santo.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted de­feated Wi­gan Ath­let­ic 3-1 on Box­ing Day 2006. Fol­low­ing a goal­less fir­st 45 min­utes, Cris­ti­ano Ron­aldo sco­red two early sec­ond ha­lf goals, in­clud­ing a pen­alty, be­fore Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer ad­ded a third goal in the 59th min­ute of pro­ceed­ings. The Lat­ics, for their part, ev­entually had late con­sol­a­tion when Leigh­ton Baines net­ted from the pen­alty spot in the fi­nal min­ute of the tussle.

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