Queens Park 0 Man United 2

Queens Park 0 Man­chester Uni­ted 2, Loftus Road, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, Jan­uary 17, 2015. Man­chester Uni­ted ma­naged to raise their ga­me sev­er­al notches ag­ainst Queens Park Ran­gers at Shepherd´s Bush to be­at the West Lon­don club 2-0. Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini opened the scor­ing ac­count on 58 min­utes, whi­le Ja­mes Wil­son hit a late goal in the 90th minute.

The Man­cuni­ans ap­proached the trip to Shepherd´s Bush wi­th some kind of trep­id­a­tion fol­low­ing the em­bar­rass­ing 1-0 de­feat ag­ainst sur­prise te­am South­ampton at their Old Traf­ford base six days earli­er. In the re­verse en­counter of the 2014-15 sea­son, Man­chester Uni­ted had soundly de­feated re­cently pro­moted Queens Park Ran­gers to the con­vin­cing tune of a 4-0 mar­gin at The Theatre of Dreams wi­th one goal apiece from An­gel Di Mar­ia, Way­ne Roo­ney, An­der Her­rera, and Ju­an Ma­ta in the 24th 36th, 44th, and 58th min­utes of the one-sided af­fair re­spect­ively. This time ar­ound, pre­vi­ous Good­ison Park mid­field war­lord Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini and young for­ward Ja­mes Wil­son saved the day for The Man­chester Reds as the two sec­ond ha­lf re­place­ments re­gistered bo­th goals dur­ing a de­served, but hard fou­ght, 2-0 Pre­mier Lea­gue tri­umph ag­ainst The Hoops at Loftus Road. This was the fir­st time that two sub­stitutes had made the score­sheet in a Pre­miership mat­ch for Man­chester Uni­ted since stri­kers Cris­ti­ano Ron­aldo and Da­vid Bel­lion fou­nd the back of the net in a com­pre­hens­ive 3-0 vic­tory over Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at Old Traf­ford on the 20th of Mar­ch 2004.

For­mer Kint­bury Ran­gers, Hun­ger­ford To­wn, Poole To­wn, Swin­don To­wn, and Burn­ley play­er Char­lie Aus­tin came clo­se to scor­ing twice for The Hoops dur­ing the fir­st frame, but the Eng­land pro­spect was denied on bo­th oc­ca­sions by ac­ro­bat­ic Man­chester Uni­ted and Spain shot stop­per Da­vid de Gea. Fol­low­ing the ha­lf time re­fresh­ments, Uni­ted gaf­fer Louis van Gaal de­cided to change his fa­voured 5-3-2 form­a­tion to a 4-4-2 in or­der to cre­ate more goal scor­ing op­por­tun­it­ies, and, in re­vert­ing to an or­tho­dox back four, re­placed Span­iard Ju­an Ma­ta wi­th Bel­gian in­ter­na­tion­al Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini. And as time wore on, it was Fel­laini who ma­naged to break the de­fens­ive dead­lock when the Brus­sels born play­maker power­ed ho­me from clo­se ran­ge two min­utes be­fore the hour ma­rk. The West Lon­doners push­ed hard for an equal­ising goal, but the ho­me si­de failed to find the tar­get ag­ainst a dis­cip­lined and well or­gan­ised Man­chester Uni­ted de­fence. Then, in the dy­ing sec­onds of the sec­ond pe­riod of the tie, Jon­ny Evans re­place­ment Ja­mes Wil­son pro­duced the sec­ond and fi­nal goal of the af­ter­noon as the nine­teen-year-old front­man be­at Queens Park Ran­gers and Three Li­ons cus­todi­an Ro­bert Green to make the fi­nal score 2-0 in fa­vour of the vis­it­ors. Wil­son had now notched up three Pre­mier Lea­gue goals in el­ev­en ap­pear­ances for Man­chester Uni­ted, whi­le Fel­laini had re­cor­ded the same amount in 29 top flight ga­mes for The Red Dev­ils since sign­ing for the Old Traf­ford club at the front end of the 2013-14 cam­paign. Queens Park Ran­gers Te­am: Ro­bert Green, Clint Hill, Nedum Onuoha, Rich­ard Dun­ne, Maur­i­cio Isla, Leroy Fer, Joey Bar­ton, Karl Henry, Char­lie Aus­tin, Eduardo Var­gas, Bob­by Zamora. Sub­stitutes: Ste­ven Caulk­er, Rio Fer­dinand, Niko Kran­j­car, Ad­el Taar­abt, Ju­ni­or Hoi­lett, Mauro Za­r­ate, Al­ex Mc­Carthy. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Jon­athan Evans, Phil Jones, Mar­cos Rojo, An­tonio Va­lencia, Mi­chael Car­rick, Way­ne Roo­ney, Ju­an Ma­ta, Da­ley Bli­nd, An­gel Di Mar­ia, Ra­damel Fal­cao. Sub­stitutes: Pad­dy McNair, Chris Small­ing, An­der Her­rera, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, Ad­nan Januzaj, Ja­mes Ant­ony Wil­son, Vic­tor Valdes.

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