Manchester United defeat Tottenham at Old Trafford

Manchester United 2-0 Tottenham Hotspur

Manchester United opened the scoring on the half hour mark, when Nemanja Vidic headed the ball passed Heurelho Gomes from Nani’s free-kick. Modric had a chance to equalise in the 37th minute, when the Croatian chested down a corner and had a shot towards goal. Edwin van der Sar, however, comfortably palmed the effort clear.

Tottenham struggled to create any clear-cut chances, as Manchester United comfortably contained them, though Gareth Bale shot just wide after an hour after making a great run. Robbie Keane was particularly weak up-front for Tottenham and was replaced by Roman Pavlyuchenko after an hour.

The Russian had a shot that went straight into the side netting. The closest Manchester United came to a second goal came from a speculative effort from Nani, while Javi Hernandez had a shot in the 70th minute that Gomes had to react quickly to save. Nani doubled Manchester United’s lead six minutes from time with a controversial goal.

Mark Clattenburg appeared to stop play for a Tottenham free-kick, only for Nani to tap the ball into the back of the net as Gomes prepared to take it. There was more bad news for Tottenham, as Rafael van der Vaart had to be substituted with a hamstring injury. Manchester United are now level on points with Arsenal, five points behind leaders Chelsea.