Rooney bags two on return to front-line duty
WAYNE Rooney ended his eight-game Premier League scoring drought with two goals as Manchester United climbed above Arsenal into third spot with a 2-0 victory against a dogged Sunderland yesterday.
United were booed during stages of another underwhelming first half at Old Trafford but Rooney, restored to his favoured forward position, dispatched a 66th-minute penalty after Radamel Falcao was impeded by John O’Shea.
Fellow former United man Wes Brown was wrongly shown the red card instead of O’Shea despite the remonstrations of Sunderland’s players before Rooney added his second with a simple finish in the 84th minute.
“It’s great to score but the three points are the most important thing after last week (a 2-1 loss to Swansea City),” Rooney told the BBC.
We knew Sunderland would be dogged. They defended well, but we were patient. It was a good performance.
“I think there are a lot of teams in a good run of form and there’s not much difference between the top teams. We hope that, come the end of the season, we’re in the right position.” Aston Villa missed a chance to climb out of the Premier League relegation zone as Papiss Cisse condemned them to a 1-0 defeat at Newcastle United yesterday.
Villa, whose troubles finding the net continued as they failed to score for the sixth successive away game, have now lost seven consecutive league matches.
And Tim Sherwood’s side are second from bottom after a 12th successive league game without a win that leaves their 27-year stay in the English top flight under increasing threat.
While new manager Sherwood awaits his first league win since taking charge, as the size of the task is laid bare by each passing defeat, the victory provided a much-needed outcome for his opposite number, John Carver.
Newcastle’s caretaker head coach earned only a second victory in the nine games since he took charge after former manager Alan Pardew’s move to Crystal Palace as Cisse kept up his impressive strike-rate this season.
In front of a St James’ Park crowd of more than 51,000, Cisse’s deadlock-breaking goal eight minutes before the interval arrived at the end of a passage of play in which the visitors had enjoyed their most sustained spell of pressure and possession.
Christian Benteke came close to ending his side’s long wait for a goal on their travels, the forward seeing an acrobatic overhead kick pushed for a corner by Tim Krul after the Belgian pounced on a weak clearing header by Mike Williamson.
That came after Benteke wastefully side-footed wide at the far post from Ashley Westwood’s lofted pass, though in terms of culpability it wasn’t in the same league as that conjured up shortly after by Gabriel Agbonlahor, who should have done better with a close-range volley from Tom Cleverley’s pass into the box.
They proved to be costly misses as Newcastle took the lead against the run of play with their first threat on goal.
Daryl Janmaat was allowed time to send over a measured cross from the right which Jores Okore should have easily cleared.
Yet the defender allowed the ball to bounce beyond him, and Cisse was able to take a touch before beating Brad Guzan with a close-range effort.
Senegal international Cisse has scored his 11 goals from 18 Premier League appearances this season, only half of those having been starts. UNITED’s top-four rivals Southampton continued their recent slump after they were beaten 1-0 at improving West Bromwich Albion courtesy of Saido Berahino’s early goal. Earlier Glenn Murray scored twice and was sent off as resurgent Crystal Palace registered a 3-1 Premier League win at a toothless West Ham United to heap more woe on the stuttering east London side, who began the season brightly. Swansea City climbed to eighth after Kieran Trippier’s own goal in a 1-0 win at struggling Burnley while Stoke City were 1-0 victors at home against Hull City thanks to a Peter Crouch header. —