BEVERLY HILLS, May 29, (THEWILL) – Uruguayan forward Edinson Cavani of English Premier League club Manchester United scored against Fulham in the 15th minute of their home draw on Tuesday, May 18 with a wondrous strike that has won the veteran player the Premier League’s Goal of the Month award for May, the last month of the season.
The striker deserved the gong for his outrageously sumptuous 40-yard lob over Cottagers’ goalkeeper – and former PSG team-mate, Alphonse Areola, to the excited pleasure of Old Trafford fans, who were welcomed back into the stands for the first time since after the lockdowns occasioned by the coronavirus pandemic.
What they witnessed was an exquisite move of sleek passing and a goal-scorer’s instinct. Man U keeper David De Gea fed the ball out from the back to midfield maestro Bruno Fernandes, whose slight back-heel touch from inside the United half played Cavani in and from there it was all the Uruguayan’s.
Where another forward may have turned on the speed to go one on one with the keeper, Cavani raised his head, clocked the French keeper off his line and created one of the moments of the season with a truly magical and cheeky goal, from just past the halfway line.
The 34-year-old, popularly known as “El Matador” by fans, beat other top contenders for the award to demonstrate how special and crafted a goal it was.
Supporters, who decide the winner of the goal of the Month award, believed it was better than the trio of Ex-Red and current Brighton & Hove Albion striker Danny Welbeck’s brilliant strike against Leeds United, than Ferran Torres’s acrobatic goal for Manchester City against Newcastle United and than Luke Thomas’s volley for Leicester City at the Theatre of Dreams.
Other contenders for May included Bertrand Traoré’s goal against United for Aston Villa, Phil Foden’s hit in City’s defeat to the Brighton, Arsenal winger Nicolas Pepe’s curler versus relegated West Bromwich Albion and Stephen Bergwijn’s opener for Spurs in their 2-1 defeat to Villa.
Cavani’s win is the fifth time a United player has won the official Premier League Goal of the Month prize, which was introduced at the start of the 2016/17 season.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
