Rooney’s hatrick sinks Portsmouth

Wayne Rooney’s hat-trick helped guide Manchester United to victory over bottom-of-the table Portsmouth.

Rooney put the visitors ahead from the spot after he was brought down by Michael Brown only for Kevin-Prince Boateng’s penalty to haul Pompey level.

Ryan Giggs crossed for Rooney to slot in and the Welsh winger was then fouled to allow the England striker to grab his third with a second penalty.

Giggs added a late free-kick as United kept the pressure on leaders Chelsea.

The win moved United to within two points of Premier League table-toppers Chelsea, who play Arsenal on Sunday.

It was Giggs’ 100th Premier League goal and capped a performance of vision and verve which has been the trademark of an illustrious career – and this a day ahead of the his 36th birthday.

Portsmouth manager Avram Grant:
“If I came from the moon and heard the result I would have thought Man Utd played great and Portsmouth was not so good but we played very well.

“I thought we played better. We created chances and conceded soft goals.

“Our goalkeeper almost didn’t touch the ball and (United keeper) Tomasz Kuszczak made three great saves.”

Manchester United boss Sir Alex Ferguson:
“Ryan Giggs is an exceptional player. A rarity. He will play for two years yet.”

He added: “So many things were happening (in the match). It is a great result for us and some of the football was good.

“In the second half we kept our discipline and the ball very well and deserved the win in the end.”

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Posted by Bilal Sulehri on Nov 29 2009. Filed under Football. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry