West Ham 2 Manchester U 4

Wayne Rooney

West Ham Uni­ted 2 Man­chester Uni­ted 4, Boleyn Gro­und, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, April 2, 2011. Way­ne Roo­ney single-handedly won the ga­me ag­ainst West Ham Uni­ted wi­th an amaz­ing hat-trick in a high-scor­ing af­fair to give Man­chester Uni­ted three vi­tal points. In a highly dra­mat­ic mat­ch, the vis­it­ors came from be­ing 2-0 down to ev­entually win 4-2.

Ta­ble top­ping Man­chester Uni­ted had de­feated Bol­ton Wan­derers 1-0 at Old Traf­ford in their pre­vi­ous Pre­mier Lea­gue fix­ture, where­as re­leg­a­tion can­did­ates West Ham Uni­ted had ma­naged a goal­less draw ag­ainst Lon­don rivals Tot­ten­ham Hot­spur at White Hart Lane. Uni­ted had soundly beaten The Irons 3-0 in the re­verse meet­ing of the 2010-11 sea­son and The Reds were ex­pec­ted to get at least a draw on their vis­it to East Lon­don. At Up­ton Park, Man­chester Uni­ted were ar­gu­ably the bet­ter te­am on the day, but af­ter 25 min­utes of play the vis­it­ing si­de were al­ready 2-0 down cour­tesy of two pen­alty goals by Ma­rk Noble. Fol­low­ing el­ev­en min­utes of con­stant ac­tion, a hand­ball in­side the box from Pat­rice Ev­ra gave West Ham a pen­alty-kick which Noble sub­sequently con­ver­ted to hand The Ham­mers an early 1-0 lead. And four­teen min­utes la­ter in the ga­me the same play­er sco­red from the pen­alty spot ag­ain af­ter Ne­manja Vid­ic had tripped Carlton Cole just in­side the area. Shortly af­ter­wards, Ji-Sung Park had a great op­por­tun­ity to pull one back for Man­chester Uni­ted a min­ute be­fore the ha­lf-hour ma­rk, but the over-eager mid­fielder hit the ball straight at Ro­bert Green.

Whatever Sir Al­ex Fer­guson told his play­ers at the break did the trick as they came back a lot strong­er fol­low­ing the re­start. Twenty min­utes in­to the sec­ond ha­lf Way­ne Roo­ney stepped up and sent a free-kick from 25 yards over the wall and Green in­to the net to re­duce the de­fi­cit for Man­chester Uni­ted. And, in the 73rd min­ute, a clev­er ball from An­tonio Va­lencia fou­nd Roo­ney who blas­ted a fe­ro­cious shot across Green and in­to the bot­tom left cor­ner of the net. Then, wi­th not more than twelve min­utes left of the fix­ture, ref­er­ee Lee Ma­son cor­rectly awar­ded Uni­ted a spot-kick of their own for hand­ball by Mat­thew Up­son. And wi­th the psyche of a Brah­min, Waz­za pla­ced his pen­alty to the right wi­th Green go­ing left for 3-2. The last goal of the clash came a mere sev­en min­utes from full time when Ry­an Gig­gs pro­duced a good cross which fou­nd Javi­er Her­nandez who calmly tap­ped the ball in­to the net from a few yards out to seal a 4-2 away vic­tory over The Irons. West Ham Uni­ted Te­am: Ro­bert Green, Manuel Da Costa, Lars Jac­ob­sen, Mat­thew Up­son, Tho­mas Hitzlsper­ger, Way­ne Bridge, Ma­rk Noble, Ga­ry O’Neil, Scott Par­ker, Demba Ba, Carlton Cole. Sub­stitutes: Jon­athan Spect­or, Ja­mes Tomkins, Win­ston Re­id, Vic­tor Obinna, Rob­bie Ke­ane, Fre­der­ic Piquionne, Ruud Boffin. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: To­masz Kusz­czak, Fa­bio da Silva, Chris Small­ing, Ne­manja Vid­ic, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Ry­an Gig­gs, An­tonio Va­lencia, Dar­ron Gib­son, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ji-Sung Park, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Oliv­er Gill, Oli­veira An­der­son, Lu­is Nani, Di­m­it­ar Ber­batov, Javi­er Her­nandez, Mi­chael Owen, Ben Amos.

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