| Manchester United Moves into First Place |
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| Written by Steve Hastings | |||||||
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Thursday, 27 December 2007
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 Manchester United rolled over Sunderland on Boxing Day 4-0 and moved into First place in the Premier League Standings. Wayne Rooney, Louis Saha and Cristiano Ronaldo scored in the first half and the rout was on. Saha scored his 2nd of the game in the 86th minute on a penalty shot to make the final margin 4-0.Manchester won without Ryan Giggs who didn’t make the trip while Carlos Tevez and Patrice Evra stayed on the bench. Sir Alex Ferguson’s team was able to dominate Sunderland with ease. Goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak had only one save to make in the first-half. On the other side it was a barrage on Sunderland goalkeeper Craig Gordon who made some nice saves or the score would have been worse. Soccer Betting at SBG Global. Sir Alex Ferguson is predicting that Wayne Rooney may start scoring goals on a regular basis after his marker on Wednesday. “I have said before that strikers do go on little runs like that. It is his first goal for six games, but his goals have come in waves. When he got his injury (in the opening game against Reading), he was out for a month and since then, he has been gradually getting towards what we have seen of him today.” There is not much that United did wrong against Sunderland. “It was an excellent performance, I thought the passing and movement was excellent,” Ferguson said, “The first goal put us in the driving seat because we knew Sunderland were going through a bit of a sticky patch. It was a marvelous move for the first goal and after that, we did play well.” Manchester was able to take over first place in the Premier League standings because Arsenal was held to a draw by Portsmouth. It was a very disappointing result for Arsenal, especially with the game being at home. Arsenal needed a win to climb back above Manchester United but the Pompey defense was superb led by former Gunner Sol Campbell. “We had to battle hard because Arsenal are a great side,” Portsmouth defender Campbell said, “They had a couple of chances at the end but it was a great shift by the lads. We wanted to get in their faces, put them under pressure and not let them settle on the ball. If you let them pass they will pass you to death.” Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was not pleased. “It was a very good defensive performance; their minds were completely on defending. We were not at our best today but gave absolutely everything. Credit to Portsmouth, they made it difficult for us. They played in one half of the pitch. I don't think offensively they had a special performance, they played with 10 players at the back and in the end they got the maximum they could from this kind of game.”                        |
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