Owen breaks City hearts

Owen snatches last-gasp winner deep into stoppage time

By Richard Bailey   Last updated: 21st September 2009   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Owen breaks City hearts

Owen celebrates his late winner

Man of the match

Darren Fletcher. Two goals and an all-round superb performance. Closely followed by Ryan Giggs on his second half showing.

Moment of the match

Michael Owen's last-gasp winner will be talked about for some time. If there were any fans still doubting the signing of the former Liverpool man, they may well have changed their minds now.

Pass of the match

Giggs used all his experience in the heat of the battle to stay composed to find Owen with a superb ball in the sixth minute of injury time when most others would have hooked the ball back into the box.

Save of the match

Shay Given's second stop from a Dimitar Berbatov header was impressive although the Bulgarian should have scored.

Talking point

Where do you start? So many talking points on the pitch, Michael Owen's winner the obvious one to start with but the post-match chat will be dominated by the six minutes of added time that allowed Owen to score.

Goal of the game

Craig Bellamy's first goal, a stunning long-range effort from the Welshman from 25 yards out into the top corner.

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A last-gasp Michael Owen strike deep into stoppage time earned Manchester United a 4-3 win over rivals Manchester City in a pulsating derby at Old Trafford.

Wayne Rooney had got the champions off to a dream start when he sidestepped the attention of two defenders before slotting home under Shay Given after two minutes.

City had started the game nervously but were gifted a way back into the match when Ben Foster allowed Carlos Tevez to nick the ball away from him on the left hand side of the area before setting up Gareth Barry, who passed the ball into the unguarded net from 20 yards.

United came out of the traps flying in the second period and were soon back in front when Darren Fletcher met a looping Ryan Giggs cross on 49 minutes.

However City answered back for a second time when Craig Bellamy was allowed to cut inside and fire an unstoppable strike into the top corner three minutes later.

The Red Devils piled on the pressure but could not seem to find a way past Given as the Irishman saved twice from Dimitar Berbatov and Ryan Giggs in quick succession.

United were not to be denied when Giggs, who was majestic on the left flank all match, crossed a free-kick from the left onto the head of Fletcher for 3-2 with ten minutes remaining.

Unbelievably the visitors came back for a third time when Bellamy capitalised on a sloppy pass from Rio Ferdinand before finishing from an acute angle past Foster.

That was not the end of it as Giggs picked out the pass of the match, finding Owen in space in the area, and he delicately dinked over Given in the 96th minute - when only four were supposed to be added on.

Bright start

United made a bright start, with Rooney and Berbatov looking particularly threatening, when Shaun Wright-Phillips let Patrice Evra run free at a quickly-taken Giggs throw-in.

Evra fed Rooney, who had the strength to wriggle past Toure and Nigel de Jong before prodding home from close range.

At that point, the noise was deafening but City were soon back on level terms. United goalkeeper Foster was left with no excuses for his truly abysmal error of judgement that gifted the visitors their equaliser.

Even Joleon Lescott turned away in disappointment as his long pass bounced into no man's land. Foster clearly felt it would eventually run into the area, which was a debatable point in itself.

Eventually, Foster realised more urgent action was required as Tevez stormed in, just as he should have expected.

Any chance of redemption disappeared as Tevez nicked the ball away from Foster's grasp as he tried to reach the safety of his area, and slipped a pass to Barry which the England midfielder gleefully swept home.

The mistake was made worse by the knowledge Foster had already received one warning, when he got his wires crossed with Nemanja Vidic and allowed Tevez to half-block a long punt downfield.

United were soon back in the lead after 49 minutes and it was Fletcher who did the damage for Ferguson's team, rising above Barry to power home Giggs' curling cross.

Thundered home

Yet, just as the hosts looked set to take control, with Park Ji-sung and Giggs going close, Bellamy thundered home an equaliser.

Bellamy had been buzzing around in his inimitable manner, but there was no doubting the stamp of class on his 20-yard strike as he collected Tevez's short pass, cut inside John O'Shea and drilled into the top right corner. This time Foster was blameless.

But there was so much drama still to come.

Fletcher thought he had won it as he powered home a second header, again from a Giggs cross, 10 minutes from time.

Yet the suicidal tendencies in United ranks had not gone away. Rio Ferdinand attempted an idle chip a minute from time, but found substitute Martin Petrov instead. Petrov released Bellamy, who ran 60 yards before tucking past Foster on 90 minutes.

It seemed City had come through their biggest test yet. Not on your life.

However as cries for the final whistle rang around the away section Giggs remained calm as he plucked the ball from the sky and picked out Owen who dinked over Given in the 96th minute, leaving City manager Mark Hughes seething at the amount of added time.

Manchester UnitedTeam StatisticsManchester City
4Goals3
11st Half Goals1
8Shots on Target4
10Shots off Target4
6Blocked Shots3
11Corners1
15Fouls16
0Offsides1
2Yellow Cards2
0Red Cards0
78.9Passing Success72.4
14Tackles26
85.7Tackles Success69.2
59.5Possession40.5
64.1Territorial Advantage35.9
Prem 2009/10 Win Outright: Man Utd 9/4

Comments (3)

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Olly Henshall (Bristol Rovers fan) says...

I can understand why Mark Hughes would be annoyed with what happened but lets look at this properly, substitutions were made and a goal was scored in injury time, also! Manchester City were clearly wasting time...so all these times that we as supporters have complained that the referee should be adding on extra time because of stoppages in stoppage time, this time it actually happens and people start hitting out! It is clearly because its Manchester United that people are hitting out. also in the last minute that was played manchester united were attacking so benefit of the doubt has to be given. Thats just the way i saw it....any supporter who would disagree with some of these facts would be lying to themselves.

Posted 21:18 20th September 2009

James Gisby (Portsmouth fan) says...

Are the refs under uniteds payroll or something? The result should have been a draw the game was allowed to go on for far too long. United desevred to have won but by they did it by a goal 6 minutes in stoppage time when there should have been 4.I bet Mark Hughes is livid. The FA should do something about this.

Posted 17:11 20th September 2009

Nick Cox (Manchester United fan) says...

why oh why does fergie keep on playing berba, is it his sheer stuborness or is he completely blind to the fact that he has made a bad bad buy. how long can he keep on defending probably his worst signing to date he will never score 15-20 goals so why not give owen - a proper striker - the chance to partner rooney. come on fergie lets play with 11 not 10....

Posted 17:08 20th September 2009
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