Manchester United 3 Glasgow Celtic 1

United strolled to a win in their first fixture of the North American pre-season tour.

Sir Alex Ferguson has made a fair point that the results are not that important on this pre-season tour and that everything is focused towards the opening Premier League fixture of the season, against Newcastle.

But he`d have been pleased that a side shorn of so many of its stars managed to dismiss the challenge of Celtic quite easily. He`d also have been pleased that one of his forwards who has been under so much pressure, Dimitar Berbatov, played a prominent role in the victory.

United had to wait thirty-four minutes for their first goal and it was the Bulgarian who scored it. Collecting a cross from Mame Biram Diouf, Berbatov controlled it sweetly before firing past the keeper.

With a slender lead at half time, United lost some of the impetus that they`d had in the opening half. Ferguson had withdrawn the veteran pair of Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes whilst his opposite number had mixed things up by introducing the Greek forward who used to play for Manchester City, Georgios Samaras.

And it was to be the Greek that pulled City level when he coolly slotted home after United new-boy, Chris Smalling had fouled the Celtic new-boy, Joe Ledley, in the area.

The game could have gone either way but it was United who upped the tempo and with twelve minutes left on the clock it was that man Berbatov who produced a great cross for Danny Welbeck to score from close range.

United then wrapped the game up when Berbatov exchanged passes with young Tom Cleverley and the youngster saw his shot, from outside the area, take a wicked deflection to beat the Celtic goalkeeper.

Post match, amongst many other things, Sir Alex had this to say about the game,
'The second goal killed the game.'
"A really fantastic goal, too. Marvellous bit of football from Berbatov.'
A good start, let`s see if we can keep it going!



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