Manchester United sealed qualification in the UEFA Champions League with a massive 5-0 blowout of Bayer Leverkusen in Champions League action tonight. They moved on to the round of 16, the knockout stages with as dominating a performance as we’ve seen during the very short regime of David Moyes.
It wasn’t expected to be be this easy for United, but it was a laugher. Manchester United are the first English side to score four goals in the Champions League in a match in Germany. And the convincing victory gives them a chance to focus on English Premier League action, as they’ll have a very difficult stretch coming up.
Valencia made it 1-0. Then Manchester United went up 2-0 thanks to a Spahic own goal. Evans put in the third goal, and Smalling the fourth. Wayne Rooney assisted on all four of the goals. Manchester United played about as complete of a match as we’ve seen all season from them. And they did it without Robin van Persie and Michael Carrick. And then to make it even more lopsided and dominated, Nani scored the game’s fifth goal at the 88th minute.
That’s 9 goals from Manchester United in the two Champions League games against Bayer Leverkusen. They also became the first team to reach 40 away wins in the Champions League.
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the country; with regular weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS Catch him Tuesdays talking Illini and Northwestern for KOZN 1620 The Zone, Fridays talking Chicago Bears for WAOR 95.7 The Fan