Dimitar Berbatov Hits A Hat-Trick

Dim­itar Berbatov

Dim­itar Ber­batov scored a hat-trick as Manchester United saw off ten-man Wigan Ath­letic at Old Traf­ford on Box­ing Day. The Reds opened the scor­ing in the eighth minute when attack minded defender Patrice Evra found mid­field play­maker Ji-Sung Park who man­aged to side­foot the ball into the back of the net to give the hosts the lead.

With only six minutes remain­ing of the first half, Wigan for­ward Conor Sam­mon was given his march­ing orders by ref­eree Phil Dowd for elbow­ing Michael Car­rick. Then in the 40th minute of the match, the ever dan­ger­ous Dim­itar Ber­batov made the half-time score read 2–0 in the favour of Manchester United with an excel­lent effort from close range. Thir­teen minutes into the second half, the Manchester United goal poacher scored his second goal of the after­noon put­ting his team into a com­fort­able 3–0 lead. Sir Alex Fer­guson even­tu­ally decided to make a double sub­sti­tu­tion in the 64th minute, with Luis Nani and Ryan Giggs mak­ing way for Fed­erico Macheda and Wayne Rooney respect­ively. Ecuadorian winger Ant­o­nio Valen­cia then made it 4–0 to the aggress­ive home side with a low power­ful shot in the 75th minute of the one-sided game. Only three minutes later, Manchester United was right­fully handed a penalty-kick which Ber­batov sub­sequently con­ver­ted to com­plete his hat-trick. As Roberto Mancini´s Manchester City side could only man­age a goal­less draw against West Brom­wich Albion at the Hawthorns, The Manchester Reds are now level in the Eng­lish Premier League title race with their bit­ter crosstown adversar­ies. In their next league match, Manchester United take on releg­a­tion strug­gling Black­burn Rovers at Old Traf­ford. Manchester United: Anders Linde­gaard, Valen­cia, Michael Car­rick, Jonny Evans, Patrice Evra, Nani, Dar­ron Gib­son, Ryan Giggs, Ji-Sung Park, Dim­itar Ber­batov, Javier Hernan­dez. Sub­sti­tutes: Ezekiel Fry­ers, Fed­erico Macheda, Wayne Rooney.

Manchester United Books