• Home
• /
• Football

Late goals give Everton rare win over Man United

LONDON - Everton stunned Manchester United with two goals in the final 14 minutes from substitutes Dan Gosling and Jack Rodwell to beat the champions 3-1 on Saturday.

The victory gave Everton a notable trio of successes after recent wins at Goodison Park over Manchester City and Chelsea and came after manager David Moyes made two late substitutions which clinched what he called a “brilliant victory”.

Everton had won only one of their previous 29 league games against United and lost 13 of the last 17 at Goodison to them. That record looked like it might remain intact when Dimitar Berbatov put United ahead with a powerful shot that went in off the underside of the bar after 16 minutes.

Everton though, missing injured midfielders Marouane Fellaini and Tim Cahill, equalised two minutes later through striker Diniyar Bilyaletdinov, who was first to react from a clearance by Jonny Evans and lashed a left-foot screamer away from Edwin van der Sar into the net.

Gosling, a 20-year-old midfielder signed from Plymouth Argyle two years ago, replaced Bilyaletdinov after 71 minutes and put Everton 2-1 up five minutes later with a shot from close range from Steven Pienaar’s cross.

Rodwell, 18, who replaced Pienaar after 88 minutes, scored Everton’s third two minutes later after a surging run that took him into the United area where he fired wide of Van der Sar to seal Everton’s first win over United since 2005.

“I came on to do a defensive job on Paul Scholes but the manager told me to get forward if I had the chance so I took it,” he told Sky Sports News.

CHELSEA TOP

The lunchtime match was the first of five in the Premier League on Saturday and Everton’s victory meant Chelsea stayed top before their visit to Wolverhampton Wanderers (1500 GMT).

Victory would have taken United into first place, at least until Chelsea played, but they remained second.

Moyes told Sky Sports: “It was a brilliant victory. It was a great team performance, a great work ethic and we are starting to get back to what we’ve been like for the last year or two.”

Everton have now lost only one of their last 12 league matches and are climbing the table, with Moyes not ruling out a top-four finish.

“We can start to look up rather than down as our form over the last month or so has been very good.”

United manager Alex Ferguson said the defeat was a blow at this stage of the title race, a huge disappointment following their 3-2 win over AC Milan in the Champions League on Tuesday.

“We were well beaten. We were outplayed in the second half. We are going for the championship and you don’t expect Manchester United to look tired like that.

“It was a bad result for us at this time of year. You can’t afford results like we’ve had today. Obviously we hope others drop points and the way the league is going this season that’s the way it has been.”