Wigan 1 - 3 Manchester United
Saturday 14th October 2006
JJB Stadium, Wigan
Cristiano Ronaldo was left on the side of the pitch with a knock, leaving the right-sided attacking role to Ole Gunnar Solskjaer, whilst Gabriel Heinze is still hamstrung.
Rooney and Saha led the line, despite Rooney's recent loss of form. Saha passed a late fitness test, and could very nearly have had a hatrick had he made the most of his chances.
The game started scrapily, and when Evra gave a free-kick away after just four minutes with a clumsy handball, Wigan capitalised. A free-kick of some quality was played straight past Edwin van der sar, with not even the world-class Dutchman having a sniff of a chance of getting close to the ball.
Some dogged defending by Wigan stifled United's play, but it wasn't long before Carrick was dictating the pace of the play.
The equalising goal was threatening to come, with Rooney jinking round three and smashing the cross-bar before winning a corner. Giggs took the corner, swinging it in. Vidic met the ball with a powerful header, and the ball hit the back of the net with some force.
From that point on it never looked likely that United would be losing points, with Rooney consistently putting Giggs and Saha through on goal. Saha should have scored on 70 minutes, but blasted wide from 10 yards.
The winner finally came from Saha when a Rooney cross was taken down brilliantly by the Frenchman, and clinically finished.
Rooney and Scholes both had late chances to kill the game early, before Solskjaer was left to run down the right, into the box, and play it coolly home. A great win.
Wigan
C Kirkland, E Boyce, F Hall, A De Zeeuw, L Baines, G Teale (69 A Valencia ), D Landzaat, Scharner, K Kilbane (69 S Todorov ), H Camara (60 L McCulloch ) E Heskey
Substitutes
12 M Pollitt, 04 M Jackson, 10 L McCulloch, 16 A Valencia, 25 S Todorov
Man Utd
E Van der Sar,
W Brown (45 R Giggs ),
R Ferdinand,
N Vidic,
P Evra,
O Solskjaer,
M Carrick,
J O'Shea,
P Scholes,
W Rooney,
L Saha
Substitutes
29 T Kuszczak, 11 R Giggs, 14 A Smith, 23 K Richardson, 25 D Jones
Ref: S Bennett
Att: 20631
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