Keane nails Pompey with cracker
Manchester Utd 3 Portsmouth 0 [ Saturday 1 November 2003 ]
Teddy Sheringham ran out to a rapturous applause from the Old Trafford faithful - but unfortunately for Teddy and the Pompey boys this was the only celebration that they were going to get on this sunny afternoon in Lancashire.
Early on in the proceedings Sheringham optimistically appealed for a penalty after claiming that he had been nudged by John O'Shea - Mike Riley was clearly going to have none of it though. Things were to get livelier when Patrik Berger produced the match's first real moment of sublime brilliance by neatly running at the United defence and beautifully side stepping Ferdinand before bending a peach of a 25 yard shot just short of the top corner.
Shortly after Yakubu's sweet back heeled flick caught United napping - the home side would of been in trouble if Nigel Quashie had of made a better connection than he had.
Once again Yakubu displayed brilliance by robbing Ferdinand (who looked half asleep) and firing in a nice low drive, only for Tim Howard to gather comfortably.
Gradually, the home side showed signs of stirring like some massive giant as Ryan Giggs bent in a dangerous free-kick which Shaka Hislop did well to hold onto.
Then all of a sudden Ruud van Nistelroy almost managed to conjure up a goal out of nothing - neatly turning away from Dejan Stefanovic - the Dutch International skillfully turned Dejan Stefanovic - controlling the ball on his thigh, and sent a dipping volley arching towards goal only to see it rattle the top of the crossbar.
Nistelroy came close once again after Quashie lost control and Giggs' simply pass through the middle of the park found the striker serging forward in a customary penatrive run only to once again place his short off target.
On the strike of the 37th minute the ball found Giggs who won a good header at the back post position - with the ball running with a snails pace Forlon calmly cued up before releasing his short into the corner of the net.
The second half saw Pompey with the all the grit and determination of a Bulldog - a beautiful pass and move from Yakubu ended with the Nigerian planing a peach of a cors onto Boris Zivkovic's head, but he lacked the power to test Howard. What happened next resembled a Carry On sketch after Ferdinand and Darren Fletcher made a howler of a mistake between them only to allow Berger to put through an inacurate pass to Sheringham, who due to the poor quality of the delivery failed to capitalise on the empty net in front of him.
More howlers were to follow as Fletcher caught Hislop off his line only to put his pass to Butt inexplicably wide.
Enter stage left Keane and Ronaldo - who after a brief introduction made the score 2-0.
United won a free-kick wide on the left and Ronald whipped it in at a rocket like cross - missing everyone and bouncing the ball past Hislop into the corner.
Just two minutes later and Keane wrapped it up, fring home powerfully from the edge of the box to make the scoreline unfair on Pompey.
Manchester Utd (4-4-2)
Howard, G.Neville, O'Shea, Ferdinand, Fortune, Fletcher, Butt, Djemba-Djemba (Keane 76), Giggs (Bellion 81), Forlan, (Ronaldo 76), van Nistelroy.
Subs (not used) P.Neville, Carrol.
Booked
Portsmouth (4-4-2)
Hislop, Schemmel (Taylor 51), Stefanovic, de Zeeuw, Foxe, Zivkovic (Roberts 81), Stone, Quashie, Sherwood (Taylor 69), Berger, Ayegbini, Sheringham.
Subs (not used) O'Neil, Wapenaar, Schemmel.
Booked de Zeeuw,