More blues for Blues as United hit 7,000

Birmingham City suffer another heavy defeat at Manchester United.

Bolton Wanderers lose at thriller at Middlesbrough.

- The agony continues for Birmingham City as the relegation threatened Blues suffer another heavy defeat at Manchester United. Manager Steve Bruce returns to the scene of many of his triumphs but must have feared the worst after falling two down after only 15 minutes. In front of a new Premiership record crowd of 69,070, City regain some lost pride as they battle back although they concede a further goal from Wayne Rooney - the 50th goal of his club career. Bruce chooses to re-open the controversy following David Sullivan’s verbal attack on his players: “Maybe there is method in his madness but I did not like my owner’s comments. Where I come from, in situations like that, you batten down the hatches, say nothing and come out fighting. Everyone is entitled to their opinion but I did not agree with his comments.”
See below for more on this game.

- In the battle between two of Sven-Goran Eriksson’s possible successors, Steve McClaren’s Middlesbrough beat Sam Allardyce’s Bolton Wanderers in a thriller at the Riverside. Wanderers fight back from 1-3 to draw level but are then sunk by a last gasp Stuart Parnaby winner. In a series of newspaper interviews today, Big Sam delivers his pitch for the big job. For example, in the Sunday Mirror he modestly claims: “I don’t think there is another manager in this country who has achieved as much as I have. That might sound big-headed to others but, if you compare the money we have all spent on players and wages, pound for pound my record’s as good as anyone’s.”

- Newcastle United lose 1-3 at Charlton Athletic, their fourth defeat in a row. The usually restrained caretaker manager Glenn Roeder doesn’t hold back on his criticism of United’s defenders: “We are too inconsistent. We can produce a decent performance one week and then we don’t. That is not good enough for Newcastle and I don’t see any point in saying otherwise.” United deny Martin O’Neill is set to become Graeme Souness’ replacement as manager.

- Chester City stay bottom of League Two after going down 1-2 in the derby visit to Wrexham. Danny Williams and Mark Jones give the Dragons a comfortable lead before Mark Wright’s team grab a late consolation through new signing Jake Edwards.

- As well as playing in front of a new Premiership record crowd, on the day that Gary Neville became only the eighth player to make 500 appearances for the club, Manchester United also reached another major milestone this afternoon.
Their opening goal against Birmingham City was their 7,000th in league football, and United become only the second club to reach this particular milestone following Wolverhampton Wanderers earlier in the season.
Due to conflicting scorelines from games early in their history, there is still some debate as to which was Wolves’ 7,000th goal - it was either Ki-Hyeon Soel against Crystal Palace on 10 December or Ioan Ganea against Leeds United on 17 December.
There’s no doubting United’s 7,000th goal came in their 4,092nd game but the identity of the goalscorer will be one for the Dubious Goals Panel (DGP) to consider. If they confirm Ryan Giggs (rather than a Maik Taylor own goal) should be credited with the outcome of his 3rd minute free-kick then it would establish a remarkable coincidence.
507 games earlier, United notched their 6,000th goal back on 20 February 1993 when they beat Southampton 2-1 at Old Trafford. The scorer? None other than Ryan Giggs!
It seems likely that the DGP will deny Ryan an incredible double (his free-kick appeared to hit the post then bounce in off Maik’s back) but we wondered if there are any previous examples of one player achieving or coming so close to claiming two major club milestones goals.
If you can oblige or have a possible suggestion, or views of the scorer of Wolves 7,000th goal, please leave them in the ‘Add Comment’ box or click on ‘leave a response’ below.
All contributions are most welcome.

We would like to thank Manchester United statistician John Russell for his help in compiling this feature.