Goals From Rooney And Park Send United Top

Manchester United FC Vs Liverpool FC
Man United have gone back to the top of the Premier League table after a 2-1 win over Liverpool at Old Trafford this afternoon. Both teams had to win, United are going after the title and Liverpool are trying to finish in the final Champions League spot (fourth place).

Man United had to come back from an early Fernando Torres goal to win the game through Wayne Rooney’s 33rd goal of the season and Ji-Sung Park’s third of the season.

With only five minutes on the clock Liverpool took the lead through Torres. Steven Gerrard played the ball to Dirk Kuyt who’s cross into the area was headed home by Torres. There were four Man United defenders around Torres but none of them were anyway near the striker and he was able to head the ball unmarked into the back of the net.


Football - Manchester United v Liverpool Barclays Premier LeagueThe match was all square six minutes later after Javier Mascherano brought down Antonio Valencia in the penalty area. Up stepped Wayne Rooney but the penalty was saved by Pepe Reina, Rooney was there though to put in the rebound. In my opinion, Mascherano was luckily to have not been shown a red, that was a goal scoring opportunity.

Before the penalty was taken, Liverpool striker Fernando Torres thought that he would cheat and decided to kick up some of the turf on the penalty spot. Torres looked rattled throughout the match, I wouldn’t have been surprised if he had been sent off, which I believe he should have been.

After the penalty had been taken by Rooney there was a scuffle between managers Sir Alex Ferguson and Rafa Benitez, I felt sorry for the fourth official stuck in the middle of it. Maybe he should have just left them to get on with it.

The winning goal came on the 60 minute mark. Darren Fletcher crossed the ball in from United’s right hand side and Park was there to brilliantly head the ball past Reina.

Football - Manchester United v Liverpool Barclays Premier LeagueTorres had a fantastic chance to equalise for Liverpool with only minutes left. The ball fell to the striker 12 yards out and he scuffed the shot, many would have bet that Torres would have scored that. He may have missed that due to there being a chunk of the pitch missing on the penalty area, which he had kicked out earlier. Karma?

It was a very scrappy game, at some points it looked like a few players could lose their tempers (especially Torres) but it a massive win for United and three points in the bag.

Fulltimes stats show that United had 60% of the possession. We had five shots on target and five off target. Liverpool had two shots on target and two off target.

Leave a Reply