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MOTD- Manchester United 2-0 Wigan Athletic

By on August 11, 2013

A Wayne Rooney-less Manchester United showed who’s boss against Championship side Wigan in the Community Shield to help manager David Moyes’ win his first trophy in United colors in his first competitive match in charge. Moyes, who had spent eleven years at Everton attempting to bring in a major trophy, saw a Robin Van Persie double bring him United’s twentieth Community Shield trophy only a month after joining the club.

Despite the Wayne Rooney transfer saga continuing as a “shoulder injury” kept him from traveling to Wembley, United pushed through to beat a rather lackluster Wigan side in a relatively uneventful game.

Although Owen Coyle’s side could barely string together a pass, they held themselves with confidence at the start of the match, acting almost like they had never been relegated. Wigan’s bravado was quickly shut down by United, as Van Persie opened the scoring after only seven minutes. The Dutch front-man fed to ball out to Patrice Evra on the left wing before making a quick run into the box and hitting Evra’s floating cross into the box into the near corner of the net with a superb curving header.

Welbeck nearly doubled the Red Devil’s lead in the fourteenth minute, but Leon Barnett flew across to poke Wilfred Zaha’s low cross from the right wide. United’s dominance quickly deteriorated tough, as the match became very scrappy. Wigan managed to work their way back, as they managed their best chance of the half in the thirty-second when Chris Smalling misjudged a Wigan long-ball allowing James McClean to sneak in on goal down the left. McClean sent a fierce volley fizzing across the face of goal and out for a throw in from a tight angle, when cutting it back to Grant Holt seemed a much better option. Welbeck then almost sealed a win for United as Tom Cleverly squared the ball to him before the English forward had his curling effort from the edge of the box pushed away by Wigan goalkeeper Scott Carson.

As the match rolled into the second half the Latics surprisingly found theirselves the more dominant side, yet United managed to double their lead in the fifty-ninth minute. Van Persie found himself open on the edge of the Wigan box after a string of neat passing by United, and the forward stroked a low shot towards towards goal. The curling effort took a huge deflection off the leg of James Perch, leaving Carson helpless as the ball flew into the back of the net. United pushed forward to find a third goal, with Antonio Valencia having his fierce shot deflected wide, but Moyes’ side could not put the icing on the cake before referee Mark Clattenberg blew the full time whistle. Still, captain Nemanja Vidic looked elated as he lifted the trophy and passed it over to a smiling Moyes during the presentation.

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.