Evans Hungry For More

Jonny Evans is targeting more goals for Manchester United after his headed opener helped seal an emphatic and impressive 3-0 win over Newcastle United.

The Northern Irish defender connected with Robin van Persie’s left-wing corner at the Sports Direct Arena to seal his first goal of the season and only the second of his Reds career. Now, after contributing to an excellent victory and an encouraging team performance in the north east, Evans is looking to make more of an impact at the opposite end of the pitch from where he normally operates.

“As a defender, you want clean sheets but scoring a goal put a bit of gloss on my own performance so it was nice to chip in,” Jonny told MUTV. “As soon as I made a connection with it I thought it was going in, so I was delighted with that and hopefully I can add a few more.

“You could see by the way that we started that we wanted to come out and put on a good performance. I think the main thing was that we defended and attacked as a team. We were a real unit out there and we made it hard for a good Newcastle side.

“They had big powerful lads with good goal scoring records, especially up at the Sports Direct Arena. We knew we were in for a hard game but we were up for the challenge and thankfully we were able to keep a clean sheet.

“We were seven points behind Chelsea (before the game) so it was a big gap and if we had dropped points it would have been a big task. Although it is still early on in the season, you don’t want to give a team that kind of advantage so early on.”

Tom Cleverley scored United’s third goal against the Magpies on Sunday, curling an audacious effort into the top corner after cutting inside from the eft flank. The strike, quite comically, caused much debate after the match as to whether or not the midfielder meant it.

And although Cleverley insists his finish was deliberate, Evans is not buying it: “There is no way he meant that. To try and shoot from there, especially to bend it, he definitely didn’t mean it. I think he was looking for Robin van Persie at the back post but it went in.

“But that was a really important time for us to score a goal because they kept pumping the ball in the box and were getting one or two chances. It was important for us to get the 3-0 lead.”