Wigan 1 Manchester Utd 0

David De Gea

Wi­gan Ath­let­ic 1 Man­chester Uni­ted 0, DW Sta­dium, Eng­lish Pre­mier Lea­gue, April 11, 2012. Pre­mier Lea­gue lead­ers Man­chester Uni­ted suf­fered a sur­prise de­feat to re­leg­a­tion can­did­ates Wi­gan Ath­let­ic. The on­ly goal of the mat­ch came in the 50th min­ute as Shaun Malo­ney be­at Uni­ted keep­er Da­vid de Gea wi­th a fierce shot from out­side the pen­alty box.

Man­chester Uni­ted, who had on­ly dropped two points since Paul Scho­les came back in­to the fold, entered this fix­ture on the back of a com­fort­able 2-0 Pre­miership tri­umph ag­ainst Ma­rk Hughes´s Queens Park Ran­gers at Old Traf­ford, whi­le The Lat­ics had suf­fered a nar­row 2-1 de­feat to Chel­sea at Stam­ford Bridge. At DW Sta­dium, Wi­gan went on to dom­in­ate large parts of the fir­st pe­riod, but The Lat­ics were un­able to take full ad­vant­age of their ball pos­ses­sion. Then, in the 22nd min­ute of pro­ceed­ings, Man­chester Uni­ted and North­ern Ire­land de­fender Jon­ny Evans was cor­rectly yel­low carded by ref­er­ee Phil Dowd for a tough chal­lenge on Wi­gan stri­ker Franco Di Santo. Af­ter 29 min­utes of play, how­ever, Ni­geri­an in­ter­na­tion­al wing­er Vic­tor Moses had the ball in the net from a Shaun Malo­ney cor­ner, but it was con­tro­ver­sially dis­al­lowed by the ref­er­ee to the ut­ter dis­may of the angry ho­me sup­port­ers. Al­though Sir Al­ex Fer­guson ev­entually re­spon­ded to the pres­sure by ma­king a sub­sti­tu­tion at the break wi­th dy­nam­ic mid­fielder Tom Clev­erly com­ing on for the an­onym­ous Ash­ley Young, the hosts took the lead five min­utes in­to the sec­ond ha­lf when Jean Beau­se­jour fou­nd Malo­ney who power­ed the ball from the edge of the area pa­st Da­vid de Gea and in­to the net. Af­ter 65 min­utes, Fer­guson de­cided to re­place Way­ne Roo­ney wi­th Lu­is Nani, but the sub­sti­tu­tion made little dif­fer­ence as the ho­me si­de held on to win the ga­me. Wi­gan Ath­let­ic Te­am: Ali Al Hab­si, Ant­olin Al­caraz, Maynor Figueroa, Ga­ry Cald­well, Em­mer­son Boyce, Jean Beau­se­jour, Ja­mes McAr­thur, Ja­mes Mc­Carthy, Shaun Malo­ney, Vic­tor Moses, Franco Di Santo. Sub­stitutes: Ron­nie Stam, Al­bert Crus­at, Jordi Go­mez, Ben Wat­son, Mo Dia­me, Con­or Sam­mon, Mi­ke Pol­litt. Man­chester Uni­ted Te­am: Da­vid de Gea, Jon­ny Evans, Rio Fer­dinand, Phil Jones, An­tonio Va­lencia, Ash­ley Young, Pat­rice Ev­ra, Mi­chael Car­rick, Ry­an Gig­gs, Javi­er Her­nandez, Way­ne Roo­ney. Sub­stitutes: Paul Po­gba, Chris Small­ing, Tom Clev­er­ley, Ji-Sung Park, Lu­is Nani, Dan­ny Wel­beck, Ben Amos.

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