Scunthorpe 2 Man United 5

Scun­thorpe Uni­ted 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 5, Glan­ford Park, Eng­lish Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup Third Ro­und, Septem­ber 22, 2010. The Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup fix­ture be­tween Scun­thorpe Uni­ted and Man­chester Uni­ted at Glan­ford Park in Septem­ber 2010 was prob­ably the biggest event ever in the his­tory of The Iron. The Cham­pi­on­ship te­am took the ad­vant­age thro­ugh Josh Wright, but The Reds were the su­per­i­or si­de by far and ended up com­fort­able 5-2 victors.

Man­chester Uni­ted deputy goal­keeper To­masz Kusz­czak, who had so far amassed 53 fir­st te­am ap­pear­ances for the club since his ar­rival from new­ly re­leg­ated West Brom­wich in Au­gust 2006, was back in the start­ing lineup for the Carling Cup Third Ro­und en­counter ag­ainst Foot­ball Lea­gue Cham­pi­on­ship si­de Scun­thorpe Uni­ted at Glan­ford Park. Ag­ainst the odds, Ian Baraclough´s Scun­thorpe play­ers went in­to an early 1-0 lead fol­low­ing nine­teen min­utes of play when Martyn Wool­ford fou­nd for­mer Eng­land U19 mid­fielder Josh Wright who sco­red wi­th a power­ful shot from some twenty-five yards out which flew in­to the top cor­ner of the net. But the Pre­mier Lea­gue gi­ants hit back as Re­pub­lic of Ire­land in­ter­na­tion­al mid­fielder Dar­ron Gib­son ex­ecuted an ex­cel­lent lob over Scun­thorpe shot stop­per Joe Murphy on 23 min­utes, be­fore for­mer Maid­stone Uni­ted and Ful­ham cent­ral de­fender Chris Small­ing fol­lowed up by net­ting from clo­se ran­ge wi­th nine min­utes left of the fir­st frame. On­ly four min­utes in­to the sec­ond pe­riod, Man­chester Uni­ted in­creased their ad­vant­age when ever­green front­man Mi­chael Owen roun­ded off a counter at­tack wi­th a well pla­ced fin­ish. And just six min­utes la­ter, the same man head­ed a cor­ner kick from Brazili­an play­maker Oli­veira An­der­son back across the eight­een-yard area to mid­field en­gin­eer Ji-Sung Park who ham­mered an un­stoppable shot pa­st the ho­me cus­todi­an and in­to the net to re­cord the fourth goal of the ga­me for Man­chester Uni­ted. The ir­re­press­ible Owen then net­ted his sec­ond in the 71st min­ute of the tie as the stri­ker calmly tucked the ball in­to the back of the net from clo­se ran­ge af­ter Murphy had failed to hold a strike from Park. Wi­th six­teen min­utes left of the clash, sum­mer sign­ing Bebe re­placed Park, but the Por­tuguese for­ward in­stantly made his ma­rk wi­th an im­press­ive run and a bril­liant ef­fort which was de­flec­ted be­hind for a cor­ner. Then, dur­ing stop­page time, Wool­ford net­ted a sec­ond con­sol­a­tion for Scun­thorpe when the flank­man con­ver­ted a low hard cross from Wright.

As re­gards To­masz Kusz­czak, the Po­land in­ter­na­tion­al shot stop­per made a num­ber of ex­cel­lent saves dur­ing the en­counter wi­th Scun­thorpe Uni­ted, and could not be blamed for the goals con­ceded. Hail­ing from Krosno Odrz­anskie in Po­land, Kusz­czak had ap­peared for Pol­ish club Slask Wrocław, as well as for Uerdin­gen and Her­tha Ber­lin in Ger­many, be­fore he was sig­ned by West Brom­wich Al­bion at the be­gin­ning of the 2004-05 sea­son. Af­ter ma­king 35 fir­st te­am ap­pear­ances for The Bag­gies, he was bro­ught to Man­chester Uni­ted by Sir Al­ex Fer­guson at he start of the 2006-07 cam­paign and de­b­uted for the club in a 1-0 Pre­miership de­feat to Ar­senal at Old Traf­ford on the 17th of Septem­ber 2006. Due to the con­sist­ent form of Hol­land in­ter­na­tion­al Ed­win van der Sar, how­ever, he fou­nd it ex­tremely dif­fi­cult to es­tab­lish him­self as fir­st choice at Uni­ted and ev­entually be­came ex­ceed­ingly frus­trated at his lack of fir­st te­am op­por­tun­it­ies. Fol­low­ing a long spell in the wil­der­ness, he ul­ti­mately de­cided to make a move to Brighton and Hove Al­bion in the sum­mer of 2012 in or­der to get more ga­me time. Scun­thorpe Uni­ted Te­am: Joe Murphy, Cliff Byrne, Ni­all Canavan, Da­vid Mirfin, Ed­die No­lan, Sam Tog­well, Mi­chael O’­Con­nor, Martyn Wool­ford, Josh Wright, Chris Dag­nall, Jon­athan Forte. Sub­stitutes: Sam Slo­combe, Rob Jones, Mi­chael Raynes, An­drew Wright, Mi­chael Collins, Bob­by Grant, Matt God­den. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: To­masz Kusz­czak, Ra­fael, Chris Small­ing, Rio Fer­dinand, Wes­ley Bro­wn, Dar­ron Gib­son, An­der­son, Ji-Sung Park, Javi­er Her­nandez, Mi­chael Owen, Fe­d­erico Ma­cheda. Sub­stitutes: Ed­win van der Sar, Ritch­ie De Laet, John O’Shea, Corry Evans, Mag­nus Eikr­em, Bebe, Gab­riel Obertan.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted won the Foot­bal Lea­gue Cup for the fir­st time in 1992 when they edged out Not­ting­ham For­est 1-0 thanks to a goal from Scot­tish in­ter­na­tion­al Bri­an Mc­Clair on 14 minutes.

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