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Red Devils invade, destroy Fulham

Comment: 0 December 22nd, 2011 by: admin

MANCHESTER United dealt a furious blow to Fulham with a brutal 5-0 victory at Craven Cottage Wednesday night.

The massacre began early on after the first whistle as the Red Devils kicked off the hosts’ slow destruction with a Danny Welbeck goal 5 minutes into the match.

This was followed by a Ryan Giggs cross that was met by Nani, who then made a spectacular glancing header that doubled United’s goal by the 28^th minute.

Afterwards the dejected crowd witnessed Giggs on the 43^rd minute send a cross that upon deflection looped over Fulham keeper David Stockdale, and gave United a 3-0 lead before halftime.

The next period began with a host team that displayed determination to at least cut down on the visitors’ lead.  Their efforts were highlighted by Anders Lindegaard’s magnificent 56^th minute save of a Clint Dempsey attempt.

The hosts’ aggression further emerged with a Moussa Dembele attempt a minute after, which unfortunately went wide.  Immediately following was a John Arne Riise free-kick that also came a few inches wide.

While the hosts began to build a steady defence and intimidating offence, United began to fire back in what became a battle of attacks and close calls from either side.

The apparent stalemate was broken however during the 88^th minute as Giggs set up for Wayne Rooney, who rocketed the ball to the net from a long range, handing United an insurmountable 4-0 lead.

As what seemed to be a closing punctuation, Dimitar Berbatov did a backheel that ended the game with a 5-0 United victory.

Red Devils manager Sir Alex Ferguson beamed at his team’s performance in the first half, describing it as nothing less than what his men have made people expect from them.

‘The performance in the first half was as good as we have played all season,’ he said.

Whatever spectacle was displayed however was overshadowed by injuries that could put Phil Jones out of commission for six weeks, and another that could sideline Ashley Young for 21 days.

‘[Dempsey] caught Jones and we’ll send him for an X-ray.  We’ll see on Thursday but it doesn’t look great.

‘But there were some very aggressive tackles in the second half and Ashley Young paid the price of that,’ he said.  ‘He was hurt and had to come off as well and will be out for two or three weeks.’

These injuries follow Rio Ferdinand’s foot ailment from the Sunday match with QPR.  Fergie however said Ferdinand should be back for the match against Blackburn on December 31.

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