Sunderland 0 Man United 1

Man­chester Uni­ted Facts­book Re­port: Sun­der­land 0 Man­chester Uni­ted 1, The Sta­dium of Light, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, May 13, 2012. A fir­st ha­lf goal from Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Way­ne Roo­ney sealed a fi­nal day vic­tory for Man­chester Uni­ted ag­ainst Sun­der­land at The Sta­dium of Light. Un­for­tu­nately, the nar­row 1-0 away tri­umph over The Wearsiders was not enough to clinch the Pre­miership title as Rob­erto Mancini´s Man­chester City went on to de­feat Queens Park Ran­gers by 3-2 at Eti­had Stadium.

Reign­ing Pre­miership Cham­pi­ons Man­chester Uni­ted had kicked off the 2011-12 sea­son by edging out FA Cup hold­ers Man­chester City 3-2 at Wemb­ley Sta­dium in the FA Com­munity Shield on the 7th of Au­gust 2011 wi­th Por­tuguese in­ter­na­tion­al wing­er Lu­is Nani pro­du­cing a double along­side one goal by Chris Small­ing. On the 30th of Nov­ember 2011, Uni­ted were knock­ed out in the 5th ro­und of the Foot­ball Lea­gue Cup fol­low­ing a sur­prise 2-1 de­feat ag­ainst Crys­tal Pal­ace at Old Traf­ford. Then, on the 7th of Dec­ember 2011, Man­chester Uni­ted suc­cumbed to a 2–1 loss ag­ainst Swiss Cham­pi­ons FC Basel 1893 at St. Jakob-Park, a res­ult which meant that they were elim­in­ated in the group sta­ge of the UEFA Cham­pi­ons Lea­gue. Uni­ted be­at bit­ter ad­versar­ies Man­chester City 3-2 at the Eti­had Sta­dium in the third ro­und of the FA Cup on the 8th of Jan­uary 2012 thanks to a brace by Way­ne Roo­ney and one goal from Dan­ny Wel­beck, on­ly to lose 2-1 to North West rivals Liver­pool at An­field in the next ro­und of the com­pet­i­tion. In the UEFA Eu­ropa Lea­gue, Man­chester Uni­ted dis­patched of AFC Ajax in the Ro­und of 32, but were knock­ed out by Ath­let­ic Bil­bao in the Ro­und of 16.

In the Pre­mier Lea­gue, Man­chester Uni­ted had beaten West Brom­wich Al­bion 2-1 at The Haw­thorns on the open­ing day of the Pre­miership cam­paign thanks to an early open­er af­ter thir­teen min­utes from Way­ne Roo­ney and a late own goal in the 81st min­ute from Ste­ven Re­id. Uni­ted fol­lowed up by de­feat­ing Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur 3-0 at Old Traf­ford eight days la­ter cour­tesy of a goal each from Dan­ny Wel­beck, Oli­veira An­der­son, and Roo­ney in the 61st, 76th, and 87th min­ute of the clash re­spect­ively and fou­nd them­selves among the early pace­set­ters. The Red Dev­ils then be­at Ar­senal 8-2 at ho­me, Bol­ton Wan­derers 5-0 away, and Chel­sea at 3-1 at ho­me be­fore they were held to an un­ex­pec­ted 1-1 draw ag­ainst Sto­ke City at Brit­an­nia Sta­dium on the 24th of Septem­ber, wi­th Nani giv­ing the vis­it­ing te­am the up­per hand on 27 min­utes and Pe­ter Crouch equal­ising for The Pot­ters sev­en min­utes fol­low­ing the ha­lf-time break. Af­ter com­fort­ably beat­ing Pre­miership new­comers Nor­wich City by a 2-0 score at Old Traf­ford thro­ugh sec­ond ha­lf goals from An­der­son and Wel­beck in their next top-flight ga­me on the 1st of Oct­ober, Man­chester Uni­ted led the Pre­mier Lea­gue ta­ble on goal dif­fer­ence from Man­chester City who, for their part, had de­feated Swansea City 4-0, Bol­ton 3-2, Tot­ten­ham 5-1, Wi­gan Ath­let­ic 3-0, Ever­ton 2-0, and Black­burn Rov­ers 4-0, and drawn 2-2 ag­ainst Ful­ham. Uni­ted were sur­passed by Rob­erto Mancini´s men fol­low­ing an evenly con­tested 1-1 draw wi­th Liver­pool at An­field two weeks la­ter, tho­ugh, and then they suf­fered a pain­ful 6-1 loss at the hands of The Sky Blues at their Old Traf­ford ho­me eight days la­ter. Man­chester United´s form im­proved as the boys in red shirts went un­beaten in their next nine mat­ches in the Pre­mier Lea­gue, but they re­mained in sec­ond place un­til a work­man­like 2-0 win over West Brom­wich at The Theatre of Dreams on the 11th of Mar­ch 2012 sent them top of the stand­ings. The Man­chester Reds then won their next four Pre­miership fix­tures and looked set to col­lect the Pre­mier Lea­gue title.

For their fi­nal fix­ture of the sea­son, Man­chester Uni­ted would travel to Wearside to take on Sun­der­land at the Sta­dium of Light, whi­le The Cit­izens would en­ter­tain re­leg­a­tion strug­gling Queens Park Ran­gers at East­lands. Ac­cord­ing to Sir Al­ex Fer­guson, it was Man­chester United´s at­tack­ing and ad­ven­tur­ous ap­proach that made the club wor­ld fam­ous. The Old Traf­ford out­fit had non­ethe­less failed to score in their two pre­vi­ous away fix­tures and af­ter be­ing eight points ahead in the Pre­mier Lea­gue on­ly a few weeks earli­er, they were now sit­ting be­hind lead­ers and bit­ter en­emies Man­chester City on goal dif­fer­ence wi­th on­ly one mat­ch re­maining of the sea­son. Man­chester Uni­ted came in­to the en­counter ag­ainst Sun­der­land on the ul­ti­mate day of the cam­paign know­ing that they need­ed to bet­ter Man­chester City’s res­ult to have any hope of clinch­ing the Pre­mier Lea­gue title. The Reds had de­feated Swansea City 2-0 at Old Traf­ford in their pen­ul­tim­ate Pre­miership fix­ture of the sea­son, whi­le The Black Cats had be­en edged out 2-1 by Ful­ham at Craven Cot­tage in their pre­vi­ous Pre­mier Lea­gue mat­ch. Uni­ted had to make do with­out the play­ing ser­vices of Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­als Chris Small­ing and Dan­ny Wel­beck, where­as Sun­der­land were mis­sing Swedish mid­fielder Se­basti­an Larsson and for­mer Old Traf­ford play­er Kier­an Richard­son. As ex­pec­ted, Man­chester Uni­ted con­trolled the pos­ses­sion of the ball for large parts of the ga­me ag­ainst the Wearside out­fit and the away si­de de­servedly took the lead in the 20th min­ute of the tussle when an un­marked Way­ne Roo­ney head­ed ho­me a centre from fel­low Eng­land in­ter­na­tion­al Phil Jones; a goal which was his 34th of the sea­son. The ho­me te­am should have equal­ised nine min­utes ahead of the ha­lf-time break, tho­ugh, as an ex­cel­lent cross from for­ward think­ing mid­field work­horse Stephane Ses­segnon fou­nd Fra­zi­er Camp­bell, but the for­mer Uni­ted stri­ker could on­ly vol­ley the ball wide of the goal. At the Eti­had Sta­dium, how­ever, Man­chester City went in­to a 1-0 lead ag­ainst re­leg­a­tion strug­gling Queens Park Ran­gers thanks to a goal from Ar­gen­tine de­fender Pablo Za­baleta in the 39th minute.

Man­chester Uni­ted star­ted the sec­ond pe­riod ag­ainst Sun­der­land well and con­tin­ued to dom­in­ate the play through­out the mat­ch, but the title chal­len­ging vis­it­ors struggled to add to their goal tally. Mean­while, stri­kers Djib­ril Cisse and Jam­ie Mack­ie sco­red a goal each for Queens Park Ran­gers Ran­gers to make the sco­reline read 2-1 in the fa­vour of the West Lon­don club at East­lands. Back at the Sta­dium of Light, bo­th te­ams made late sub­sti­tu­tions, wi­th Eng­land U21 in­ter­na­tion­al fron­trun­ner Con­nor Wick­ham re­pla­cing mid­field play­er Da­vid Vaugh­an in the 74th min­ute of ac­tion and Lu­is Nani com­ing on for wing col­league Ash­ley Young eight min­utes la­ter. But al­though Man­chester Uni­ted ev­entually bag­ged all three points wi­th a hard fou­ght 1-0 away vic­tory ag­ainst Mar­tin O´Neill´s Sun­der­land si­de, Sir Al­ex Ferguson´s play­ers were  pipped at the post by cross-to­wn rivals Man­chester City who ma­naged to edge out The Hoops 3-2 thanks to goals from Ar­gen­tina in­ter­na­tion­al Ser­gio Aguero and Bos­ni­an marks­man Ed­in Dzeko dur­ing stop­page time. That’s foot­ball, that’s life. Sun­der­land Te­am: Si­mon Migno­let, Phil Bard­s­ley, John O’Shea, Tit­us Bramble, Mi­chael Turn­er, Jack Col­back, Craig Gard­ner, Da­vid Vaugh­an, Ja­mes Mc­Cle­an, Stephane Ses­segnon, Fra­izer Camp­bell. Sub­stitutes: Sot­iris Kyr­giakos, Ahmed El­mo­ha­mady, Da­vid Mey­ler, Way­ne Bridge, Ji Dong-won, Con­nor Wick­ham, Kier­en West­wood. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Phil Jones, Rio Fer­dinand, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Jon­ny Evans, An­tonio Va­lencia, Paul Scho­les, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ry­an Gig­gs, Ash­ley Young, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Mi­chael Owen, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Javi­er Her­nandez, Ra­fael da Silva, Ji-Sung Park, Lu­is Nani, Ben Amos.

Manchester United Quickfacts

Man­chester Uni­ted de­feated Sun­der­land by 1-0 at The Sta­dium of Light in their pen­ul­tim­ate fix­ture of the 2009-10 sea­son thro­ugh a goal from Lu­is Nani two min­utes be­fore the ha­lf-hour mark.

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