Louis van Gaal's unbeaten start to life at Manchester United has continued with a 3-2 friendly victory over Roma in the International Champions Cup.
Having raced into a three-goal lead at the interval, the Red Devils were left holding on at the end as the Gillorossi pulled back two goals in the final 15 minutes.
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The Serie A outfit nearly took the lead with under three minutes on the clock when Juan Iturbe beat the offside trap before latching onto a ball over the top, but his lobbed effort ended up drifting over the bar with Sam Johnstone rushing off his line.
It was United - fresh on the back of their emphatic 7-0 victory against Los Angeles Galaxy earlier this week - who broke the deadlock, however, courtesy of Wayne Rooney's strike from outside the box on the 36-minute mark, which left Lukasz Skorpupski with little chance of stopping it.
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Three minutes later, the Red Devils extended their lead when Juan Mata chipped the ball over Skorpupski to make it 2-0, after latching onto Rooney's ball into his path.
Things turned even worse for Roma before the interval as Rooney bagged his second and Man United's third of the night. Danny Welbeck was adjudged to have been brought down by Urby Emmanuelson in the area, and England international Rooney slammed home the resulting penalty to all but seal the victory.
Chances were harder to come by in the second 45 minutes for the Premier League side, and Roma eventually pulled a goal back with 15 minutes remaining thanks to Miralem Pjanic's audacious effort from inside his own half, which caught substitute goalkeeper Ben Amos off his line.
Roma were then awarded a penalty of their own shortly after which Francesco Totti put beyond Amos, but Van Gaal's charges held out to secure the victory.
Daniel Lewis
