Manchester United Held To Shock Draw

Wayne Rooney

Barclays Premier League lead­ers Manchester United were held to a shock­ing 4–4 draw by a highly determ­ined and well organ­ised Ever­ton team at their Old Traf­ford home on Sunday after­noon. As a res­ult, the gap to second-placed Manchester City has now been cut to three points with only three more matches left of the cam­paign.

The encounter was indeed a thriller, with both Manchester United and Ever­ton giv­ing everything they had. The Mer­sey­siders went ahead thanks to a per­fect headed goal from Croa­tia inter­na­tional front­man Nikica Jelavic in the 33rd minute of the bizarre clash. Four minutes before the sound of the half time sig­nal, how­ever, bandy legged flank­man Luis Nani found Wayne Rooney who nod­ded the ball past help­less shot stop­per Tim Howard and into the net from six yards out. Twelve minutes into the second period, Manchester United found them­selves in the lead as Eng­land for­ward Danny Wel­beck tricked defens­ive mid­fielder John Heitinga before he expertly curled his shot into the top corner. And four minutes later mid­field work­horse Michael Car­rick found the ever present Danny Wel­beck who flicked the ball onto Nani who coolly dinked the ball into the back of the net to make the score­board read 3–1 in the favour of the Old Traf­ford side. After the mor­ale sap­ping Manchester United charge, the Ever­ton play­ers main­tained enough com­pos­ure to reduce the defi­cit as Bel­gium inter­na­tional play­maker Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini vol­leyed home a whipped cross ball from for­ward think­ing right wing­back Tony Hib­bert in the 67th minute of the play only for Sir Alex Ferguson´s men to restore their two-goal lead when Rooney and Wel­beck exchanged passes for the former to record his 180th goal in 362 first class appear­ances for The Reds. Then in the 83rd minute, The Tof­fees scored their third goal of the after­noon as Fel­laini found Jelavic who pro­duced an accur­ate shot into the bot­tom corner. With just five minutes left on ref­eree Mike Jones´s watch, South African wing­man Steven Pien­aar even­tu­ally man­aged to net the last goal of the con­test to make the final score 4–4. Next up for Manchester United is the derby match against Manchester City at East­lands in a week´s time. Manchester United Team: David de Gea, Rafael da Silva, Jonny Evans, Rio Ferdin­and, Patrice Evra, Ant­o­nio Valen­cia, Michael Car­rick, Paul Scholes, Nani, Wayne Rooney, Danny Wel­beck. Ever­ton Team: Tim Howard, Tony Hib­bert, Phil Jagielka, Johnny Heitinga, Sylvain Dis­tin, Leon Osman, Philip Neville, Mar­ou­ane Fel­laini, Dar­ron Gib­son, Steven Pien­aar, Nikica Jelavic. Sub­sti­tutes: Phil Jones, Javier Hernandez.

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