If ever there was a meeting of two teams travelling in completely opposite directions it might well have happened on Saturday 12th January 2008 at Old Trafford. It was here that Manchester United, with Alex Ferguson in his twenty second year in charge at the club, retook the lead in the Premiership by smashing six second half goals past a team that had just sacked its most recent manager after only eight months. It was a laughable scoreline which showed that the soap opera that is Newcastle United could quickly be turning into a car-Toon.
Owen has goal disallowed
An early indication for Newcastle that this was not going to be their day came when, despite Manchester United’s early dominance, Michael Owen was the first to have the ball in the net, only for the goal to be controversially chalked off for offside when replays showed he was on.
The Toon Army were not alone in feeling aggrieved during the opening period, however, as Manchester United fans believed their side should have been awarded a penalty for Steven Taylor’s challenge on Ronaldo inside the area. The decision did not go their way and only served to add to an extremely frustrating first half for United which also saw Shay Given twice save from Wayne Rooney and later from Ronaldo before Steven Carr stopped a follow up shot from Ryan Giggs.
Six for United in second half
The second half of the game began just as the first had ended, with the home team laying siege to The Magpies goal. This time, however, The Red Devils managed to find the chink they had been searching for in the black and white defences and then went on to tear them down.
The breakthrough came just four minutes after the restart when a freekick was harshly awarded against Alan Smith for a foul on Ronaldo and the Portuguese then proceeded to drive the ball home.
Manchester’s second goal was poof that pantomime season was definitely still in full swing on Tyneside.
Newcastle’s problems began when Claudio Cacapa’s careless ball to Jose Enrique put the Spaniard under pressure. In response, Enrique passed the ball and the problem onto his goalkeeper Given who, in trying to clear, smashed the ball off Cacapa to Ryan Giggs who found Carlos Tevez for a comfortable finish.
Alex Ferguson’s side’s third goal on 69 minutes was a classic, unstoppable United move which saw the ball travel from Michael Carrick to Tevez and then Rooney in quick succession before Ronaldo shot home.
The score remained at 3-0 until the 85th minute when Rio Ferdinand converted a cross from Rooney for a forth goal and Ronaldo finally got his hat-trick, and United’s fifth, two minutes from time.
As if the day couldn’t get any worse for Newcastle’s caretaker manager Nigel Pearson, in injury time Tevez hit a drive against the bar and then down to just cross the line for Manchester’s sixth and Alan Smith was subsequently sent off for dissent after arguing with the referee as to whether the goal should have been given.
On the final whistle the despondent Newcastle fans were left with nothing to do but head for the Old Trafford exits with that morning’s snub from Harry Redknapp stuck in their throats and the model of a successful Premiership club staring them right in the face.
