Newcastle 2 Man United 6

Paul Scholes

New­castle Uni­ted 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 6, St Ja­mes´ Park, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, April 12, 2003. New­castle Uni­ted con­ceded six goals at St Ja­mes´ Park for the fir­st time since Mar­ch 1961 as they suf­fered a 6-2 ho­me de­feat to Man­chester Uni­ted. Paul Scho­les hit a tre­ble, whi­le Ole Gun­nar Solk­jaer, Ry­an Gig­gs, and Ruud van Nistel­rooy all net­ted a goal each. 

Sec­ond pla­ced Man­chester Uni­ted had soundly beaten Liver­pool 4-0 at Old Tra­ford in their pre­vi­ous Pre­mier Lea­gue fix­ture, where­as third po­si­tioned New­castle Uni­ted had suc­cumbed to a 2-1 de­feat at the hands of Ever­ton at Good­ison Park. New­castle went ahead thanks to a long dis­tance strike from Eng­land mid­fielder Jer­maine Je­nas on 21 min­utes, on­ly for Nor­we­gi­an in­ter­na­tion­al Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer to equal­ise for Man­chester Uni­ted wi­th a clo­se ran­ge ef­fort two min­utes pa­st the ha­lf-hor ma­rk. And two min­utes la­ter, Paul Scho­les vol­leyed the ball pa­st New­castle and Re­pub­lic of Ire­land goal­keeper Shay Giv­en and in­to the net, and the same man fou­nd the back of the net ag­ain as he ham­mered an un­stoppable drive from out­side the eight­een-yard area in­to the goal af­ter 38 min­utes of ac­tion. Man­chester Uni­ted con­tin­ued to dom­in­ate the play and the con­fid­ent vis­it­ors ad­ded their fourth goal of the Pre­mier Lea­gue clash when a power­ful shot from John O´Shea de­flec­ted off the cross­bar and in­to the path of Ry­an Gig­gs who smash­ed the ball in­to the empty net in the fi­nal min­ute of the fir­st pe­riod. And sev­en min­utes in­to the sec­ond ha­lf of the tie, Scho­les com­pleted his tre­ble wi­th a clo­se ran­ge try to make it 5-1 to Man­chester Uni­ted. But there were more goals to come as Neth­er­lands in­ter­na­tion­al Ruud van Nistel­rooy be­at Giv­en from the pen­alty spot in the 58th min­ute of the fix­ture af­ter an il­leg­al chal­lenge on Diego For­lan by Tit­us Bramble, be­fore Eng­land U21 stri­ker Shola Ameo­bi notched up a late con­sol­a­tion goal for Bob­by Robson´s New­castle te­am wi­th one min­ute re­maining of the high-scor­ing en­counter at St Ja­mes´ Park. New­castle Uni­ted Te­am: Shay Giv­en, Tit­us Bramble, Jon­athan Woodgate, Aar­on Hug­hes, Olivi­er Bern­ard, Nol­berto So­lano, Jer­maine Je­nas, Kieron Dyer, Lau­rent Ro­bert, Alan Shear­er, Craig Bel­lamy. Sub­stitutes: Hugo Vi­ana, Lo­mana Lu­a­Lua, Shola Ameo­bi. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Fa­bi­en Bar­thez, Wes Bro­wn, John O’Shea, Mi­kael Sil­vestre, Rio Fer­dinand, Nicky Butt, Ry­an Gig­gs, Roy Ke­ane, Paul Scho­les, Ruud van Nistel­rooy, Ole Gun­nar Sol­skjaer. Sub­stitutes: Ga­ry Ne­ville, Lau­rent Blanc, Diego Forlan.

 

Paul Scholes Quickfacts

Fol­low­ing two dec­ades at Man­chester Uni­ted, Paul Scho­les de­cided in the spring of 2013 that he would fi­nally re­tire from the ro­und ball ga­me. The mid­field play­maker had ini­tially gone in­to re­tire­ment at the end of the 2010-11 sea­son, but la­ter made a suc­cess­ful come­back dur­ing the 2011-12 campaign.

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