London: Manchester United went top of the Premier League, at least until the day’s later matches, when they won 2-1 at Watford on Saturday after the hosts’ Troy Deeney equalised with a penalty and then scored an own goal in the dying minutes.
United looked set to win 1-0 after Dutchman Memphis Depay put them ahead in the 11th minute, a lead they held until Deeney equalised from the spot in the 87th after substitute Marcos Rojo brought down Odion Ighalo in the penalty area.
Yet just when Watford appeared to have done enough to secure a point, Deeney diverted a cross from Bastian Schweinsteiger into his own net in stoppage time.
United manager Louis van Gaal said on Friday that his compatriot Depay needed to do more to convince him after a disappointing start to his United career, and the 21-year-old Dutchman responded with his first goal for almost two months.
He broke the deadlock when he connected perfectly with an Ander Herrera cross from the right and volleyed past Heurelho Gomes with his left foot.
Although Watford failed to make much of an impact in the first half, they looked livelier after the break and two efforts from Deeney and one from Etienne Capoue forced United keeper David de Gea into making some smart saves.
There was a solemn moment before the game at Vicarage Road when the players of both sides stood together around the centre circle in silence, while the French national anthem was also played as a mark of respect following last week’s attacks in Paris.
France’s national anthem, ‘La Marseillaise’, was played before the kick-off of the early match. Some 130 people were killed and over 350 injured in a series of incidents across the French capital on Friday, November 13, which included a suicide attack outside the Stade de France, where France were playing Germany in a friendly international.
Fans of both France and England joined in singing ‘La Marseillaise’ before Tuesday’s friendly international at Wembley.
Officials then ruled that the anthem would be played before all this weekend’s 10 top-flight matches in England, the first round of Premier League fixture since the attacks.
There are 72 French players and two French managers (Arsenal’s Arsene Wenger and Aston Villa’s Remi Garde) involved in English football’s top flight.
Two of those players were on show at Vicarage Road, Watford’s home ground, north of London, with United’s Morgan Schneiderlin, a member of the France squad in Paris, and the Hornets’ Etienne Capoue, whom television picture showed singing the anthem, taking the field for the prematch ceremony.
