{"id":7240,"date":"2014-03-19T22:16:51","date_gmt":"2014-03-19T22:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=7240"},"modified":"2014-03-19T22:16:51","modified_gmt":"2014-03-19T22:16:51","slug":"van-persie-hat-trick-eases-pressure-on-moyes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=7240","title":{"rendered":"Van Persie hat-trick eases pressure on Moyes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"0008acad-642\"<\/a>A stunning Robin van Persie hat-trick was enough to put Manchester United into the quarter-finals of the Champions League and relieve the pressure on their beleaguered manager David Moyes.<\/p>\n

Van Persie, who left the pitch on a stretcher late on, converted a first-half penalty and scored on the brink of half-time before he struck the final goal of the 3-0 win with a free-kick just after the restart.<\/p>\n

The win meant that United saw off the challenge of Olympiakos 3-2 on aggregate.<\/p>\n

The Theatre of Dreams turned into the scene of Moyes’ worst nightmare on Sunday when United lost 3-0 to Liverpool and questions arose about the manager’s future.<\/p>\n

But the United boss got everything spot on against the Greek side.
\nThe odds were against the United boss. The last time the Red Devils came back from 2-0 down in the first leg was 30 years ago when Bryan Robson inspired the team to a rousing 3-0 win over a Barcelona side that included Diego Maradona.<\/p>\n

It was another United Stalwart, Ryan Giggs, who bossed the game against Olympiakos.<\/p>\n

Moyes’ decision to deploy the 40-year-old in the middle of the park proved to be a masterstroke; he played a key role in the build-up to the first two goals and excelled throughout.<\/p>\n

\"0008acbd-642\"<\/a><\/p>\n

A battered and bloodied Antonio Valencia, who was given a black eye early in the first half, also put in a fine display.<\/p>\n

In scoring his hat-trick, Van Persie joined an elite group of Manchester United players who have bagged Champions League hat-tricks. Andy Cole, Ruud van Nistlerooy, Michael Owen and Wayne Rooney are the only others to achieve a similar feat.<\/p>\n

Although Moyes will be delighted with his team\u2019s result, he will have concerns about their performance.<\/p>\n

United had goalkeeper David de Gea to thank on more than one occasion for staying in the competition, the young Spaniard pulling off a particularly impressive double save just before Van Persie\u2019s second.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Credit: RTE Sport<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A stunning Robin van Persie hat-trick was enough to put Manchester United into the quarter-finals of the Champions League and relieve the pressure on their beleaguered manager David Moyes. Van Persie, who left the pitch on a stretcher late on, converted a first-half penalty and scored on the brink of half-time before he struck the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":7241,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[3,38],"class_list":["post-7240","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ghana-news","tag-palaver-newspaper"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}