DERBY DEVOURED AS UNITED ARE BACK AT WEMBLEY

 

 

Well getting beaten by a Championship side is never a good thing and that's what happened at Pride Park a couple of weeks back. However the Carling Cup semi finals are two legged affairs and a 1-0 defeat isn't going to do much damage is certainly relatively easy to overhaul, particularly if the second leg is at Old Trafford. Derby may now have a permanent manager in the form of Nigel Clough but Fergie was confident enough to decide that we didn't need our main men in the starting XI. Foster in goal, Rafael right back, Neville and Evans central defense, O'Shea left back, Nani right mid, Gibson and Anderson in central midfield, Giggsy left mid, Tevez and Wellbeck up front.

Well Derby certainly had big ideas at the start of the match but it was their defense that needed to be busy and though they held out for a bit, in the 16th minute Nani surged through and ripped their net off! After that, the Rams resistence just crumbled in the 22nd minute, trying to call for a non-existent offside when Wellbeck set up O'Shea. 2-0 United. This tie was effectively ours now and we put it to bed in the 34th minute with Rafael setting up Tevez for United's third. This was one heck of a reality check for both Clough and Derby, we should have made it four before half time but that would have just been greedy. There was no way Derby could turn this tie back round in 45 minutes.

We picked up where we left off in the second half but couldn't find the net with an early freekick. In the meantime Fergie decided to overhaul the team thanks to a mix of injuries, experimentation and in one case, outright overkill. The appearance of bigger names actually seemed to fire up the Rams though and they went on their best attacking spell of the match, leading to an 80th minute penalty where Giles Barnes pulled one back. Fine, nothing more than a consolation goal and besides, they were dumb enough to concede a penalty at the other end, overkill sub Ronaldo doing the honours in the 89th. Derby did have the last word when Barnes hit an injury time free kick. However it was, better luck next time Rams!

Elsewhere, another Championship side, Burnley, were hosting Spurs at Turf Moor. And the home side soon set about pulling off an upset with Robbie Blake opening the scoring to secure an edge aftyer Spurs had blown their early chances. Spurs hammered the Burnley goal in the second half but found themselves getting absoloutely nowhere and in the meantime Chris McCann and Jay Rodriguez had hit the net for Owen Coyle's side. It looked like an amazing result for a team in the hunt for a playoff spot but their job was not done yet. The score was still 4-4 on aggregate. All their efforts so far had done was buy themselvesextra time.

Unfortunately, Burnley seemed to have run out of fuel during the extra period. Spurs had most of the chances in the main part of the game. They had all of the chances in extra time. The way things played out it was a surprise the tie was still level. However defence can only get you so far in a game and the Premiership side were bound to find a hole in the wall sooner or later. Even so, untill the last few minutes it looked like the tie might be decided on away goal, until Roman Pavlyuchenko and Jermain Defoe finally hit the net. The result onb the night however will still go down as a Burnley win, and probably one of their greatest nights in recent history.

So, United are in the Carling Cup final and we face Spurs at Wembley. Or rather, our reserves face Spurs at Wembley. This is what could potentially be a problem. Spurs first team are capable of giving our first teamers enough headaches, put them against our reserves and our second stringers might get a reality check. However, this bunch of second stringers have gotten us to the final and have mugged a at least one Premiership first team side along the way. I am not as confident about this match as I am the upcoming FA Cup tie against Harry Redknapp's crew. However this match is still doable, we shouldn't be counting chickens here though.

North of the border, Kilmarnock beat SD2 Ayr United in a Scottish Cup 4th round replay. The underdogs may have opened the scoring but ran out of fuel in the second half allowing Killie to turn the match round and make it into the 5th round. The anoying thing is, one SPL side has yet to have their 4th round fate decided. Motherwell were meant to face Highland League side Inverurie Locos at Harlaw Park. However the match has been postponed for a second time because of the weather. You'd have thought the SFA would have a limited to the number of times a Cup match can be postponed but apparantly not. Let's just hope it's third time lucky and that it doesn't go to a replay!

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