Manchester United 5 Wigan Athletic 0

By Mark Ogden

 

For all the annoyance Sir Alex Ferguson may have felt at Manchester City topping the Premier League on Christmas Day, the flip side is the prospect of toasting his 70th birthday on New Year’s Eve with Manchester United looking down on their “noisy neighbours” again.

 

A 5-0 Boxing Day rout of Wigan Athletic, five days after an equally-emphatic victory at Fulham, ensures that United will claim top spot before Big Ben rings in 2012 if they avoid defeat at home to Blackburn Rovers on Saturday lunchtime.

 

It required a Dimitar Berbatov hat-trick and a questionable first-half red card for Wigan forward Conor Sammon to propel United to the points, but with City surprisingly held at West Brom, the pendulum in the title race now appears to have swung back in the direction of Old Trafford.

 

Prior to their 4-1 victory against Wolves at Old Trafford on Dec 10, United trailed City by five points, with Roberto Mancini’s team holding a seemingly formidable 17-goal advantage - helped in no small way by their 6-1 derby win in October - over their Mancunian rivals.

 

But despite being in the midst of an injury and illness crisis that has cost United the services of Nemanja Vidic, Darren Fletcher, Tom Cleverley and Anderson, to name just four, Ferguson’s players have somehow won eight and drawn one of their nine league games since the derby humiliation against City two months ago.

  

Sixteen goals in four league games have also allowed United to take bite-size chunks out of City’s goal difference and the target now is to return to the Premier League summit on Saturday, 24 hours before Mancini and co face Sunderland at the Stadium of Light.

 

Ferguson said: “It’s a long season, but we want to get to New Year’s Day and, if we are top of the league or joint top with City on New Year’s Day, I will be happy. We are really hitting good form.

 

“The consistency of the team is very good now, but injuries are mounting up and we are getting our fair share. We have had a nightmare the last few days - Phil Jones came down ill, Chris Smalling is ill, Rio [Ferdinand] called off with a back injury and [Jonny] Evans came off injured at half-time. It does put some pressure on but, fortunately, we had a good first half and an early goal which helped us and we’ve managed to get through the game without any more injuries.”

 

Despite United’s personnel problems, which resulted in Michael Carrick starting at centre-half, Wigan’s woeful record against the champions - 37 goals conceded in 12 successive defeats - suggested that Ferguson’s players were facing the perfect opponents to enhance their goal tally.

 

Wigan might have arrived at Old Trafford having held both Chelsea and Liverpool at the DW Stadium in their last two games, but there was never any sense of Roberto Martínez’s players continuing their run of form by derailing United’s title push.

 

United were in cruise control from the moment Ji-sung Park put them ahead with his second goal of the season on eight minutes. Patrice Evra created the goal for Park by jinking past Victor Moses and Antolin Alcaraz before pulling back for the South Korean midfielder to side-foot past Ali Al Habsi from six yards.

 

Wigan reacted by ambitiously seeking a route back into the game and Sammon and Jordi Gómez both gave United defender Evans worrying moments before Sammon was dismissed by referee Phil Dowd on 39 minutes. Although Dowd signalled that an elbow had been used, Sammon appeared to do no more than use his left arm to shield the ball from Carrick.

 

Martínez said: “It was a shocking decision. Conor is trying to get into a good position to receive the ball and it shouldn’t have been a red card. There was nothing malicious in it. I was surprised to see a free-kick and gobsmacked to see a red card.”

 

Still, having been outplayed with 11 men, Wigan now had to face 51 minutes with 10 and the danger for the visitors was an avalanche of United goals. And within two minutes of Sammon’s dismissal, the deluge began with Berbatov scoring his first of the game from close range following Javier Hernández’s flick-on from Darron Gibson’s cross. Wigan continued to play open football, but they simply gave United the licence to add to the scoring and Berbatov made it 3-0 after 58 minutes.

 

Berbatov again made a scoring chance out of a half-chance, but the manner of his drag-back from Antonio Valencia’s pass was stunning, enabling the 30 year-old to beat Al Habsi with a powerful right-foot strike. Valencia delivered another blow to his former club by scoring with a low drive from Carrick’s pass after 75 minutes.

 

The fifth came from the penalty spot in the 78th minute after Alcaraz had fouled Park, who looked to have been tripped outside the 18-yard box.

 

Berbatov, yet to be offered a new contract to replace the final six months of his present deal, casually rolled the penalty past goalkeeper Ali Al Habsi to make it 5-0. Telegraph