Manchester United six – Newcastle United objectives and capabilities and misses..

2003

The move for Newcastle’s first began when Beckham gave the ball away to Ginola. He danced past Gary Neville, withstood the barging of Beckham and passed to Ferdinand, whose shot was deflected for a corner. Ginola took it, Shearer outjumped the defence and Peacock headed down towards goal. Irwin scooped the ball away from beneath the bar, but, as television technology was to prove, referee Dunn rightly ruled that it had crossed the goal-line. The inevitable arguments led to Schmeichel’s booking, but, although a Cantona free kick was to float alarmingly close to Srnicek’s own bar, on the half-hour Ginola was to score a sublime second goal, and there was not a semblance of doubt about its quality or its merit. Ginola turned on the left-hand edge of the penalty box and, with his right foot, hit the ball across Schmeichel, angled and arrowed for the inside of the far post. Schmeichel almost had whiplash as he turned, startled, to see the ball go by. A few minutes later, Shearer, from the same distance, struck the base of his post. Now, with Batty ensuring that Newcastle were not beaten, as before, in the competitive area of midfield, one could positively sense the rout. However, Manchester United did not give up, and Beckham provided enough accurate ball from the right for a better finisher than Poborsky to have scored more than once. The hunger in Newcastle, each man speaking afterwards of returning the embarrassment that they felt at Wembley in the Charity Shield, would not …
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