It was May 6, 2014, a gloomy night for most Manchester United fans at Old Trafford. Champions League football was out of reach, David Moyes had just been sacked not too long ago, and the Old Trafford farewells to United legends Ryan Giggs, Nemanja Vidic, Rio Ferdinand, and Patrice Evra. Despite the all the gloom that was cast upon them that night, it was all smile for Manchester United fans at the end of the night with a 3-1 victory.
Interim player-manager Ryan Giggs put out quite the intriguing team on the night with Alexander Buttner and Antonio Valencia at full backs. Adnan Januzaj was also in the lineup while Tom Lawrence and James Wilson made their first-team debut. Not much was known about Lawrence or Wilson unless you were quite into watching more of the youth team than the senior team, but we wouldn’t blame you for doing that last season because of how atrocious it was to watch Manchester United at times.
Just after twenty minutes, Phil Jones went off with an injured shoulder and his World Cup dreams were in question after that. Captain Nemanja Vidic came on for what his final Old Trafford performance and displayed some of his best defending of the season on his final day. Tom Lawrence had his opportunities to find the back of the net as he was not trigger-shy, but his shots just flew over and wide. Just passed the half hour mark, James Wilson made his mark. Off of a free kick, Marouane Fellaini headed the ball down right into Wilson’s path and he would go on to make it 1-0.
Just after the hour mark, Wilson would go on to double his tally and the lead by poking home Marouane Fellaini’s rebound. It was looking more and more likely that Wilson was going to get a hat-trick on his debut possibly becoming what could have been the third player in United history to accomplish such a feat. Just two minutes later however, Matty Fryatt halved the lead with a strike of his own dispatching some fear into the United faithful who could sense another disappointment coming along.
Not too long after the Fryatt goal, Giggs took Wilson off for Robin van Persie. Wilson came off to a roaring ovation, and it looked to be sure we’d see more of him in the coming years. Tom Lawrence would also come off a few minutes after Wilson and would come off for the player-manager himself, Ryan Giggs. If Giggs wanted to keep his BPL consecutive goalscoring seasons alive, it would have been quite the ending had he scored at home. Sadly, he did not score, but Robin van Persie put home the dagger just four minutes from time to seal three points for United. Looking back at it, last season had more disappointments than positives, but we will always remember that the bright spots of the season were provided by the youth, the backbone of Manchester United.