West Ham 1 v 2 Manchester United
Upton Park, West Ham
27th November 2005
on the day that George Best was remembered around the country, United's own number 7 was on the bench, waiting for a chance to show his skills off. With Ronaldo on sub-list, it fell to Wayne Rooney to provide all of the glitz and glamour with which Best would be remebered. And he did that well enough.
With United, and Rio ferdinand doing their usual trick of falling asleep at the start of the game, what should have been a great day for Manchester United turned into a nightmare.
Arsenal and Chelsea had both won earlier in the week, putting added pressure on the Reds, which they eventually rose to, even if it did take 47 minutes of constant attacking before the game came.
In that time, Mickael Silvestre had been unceremoniously dumped from the team - Gary Neville entering the Premiership for the first time in 3 months.
It was after Fergie's Best-inspired team-talk that United started to play with the fluency that we have come to expect over recent weeks. On 47 minutes, Park controlled the ball, and played it neatly into Rooney's path, who neatly took the ball round Ferdinand, wrong-footing Rio's little brother, and then smashing it through Roy Carroll's legs.
The celebrations were saved for ten minutes later, however, when John O'Shea headed home a Scholes corner.
From that point on it seemed unlikely that Fergie would put Ronaldo on, and so it was to be - with our Portuguese star leaving the field at full-time in his tracksuit.
He may also be rested on Tuesday, with the United youngsters gifted a chance to represent United in the Carling Cup.
