RESERVES MUDWRESTLED BY BURTON

 

(Image taken from Manutd.com)

 

So, a trip to the Pirelli Stadium, home of Burton Albion for United in the FA Cup 3rd round - no worries mate, they're down in the Conference National, their players are part timers, they'll just be happy to be on the pitch! Let Ole get back into the groove and on to Round 4 right?

Wrong! OK the problems started when Fergie first decided to play the reserves(you really couldn't blame the Burton fans singing "who are ya?") for this match and secondly put Solksjaer at right mid and not upfront where "the Baby Faced Assasin" has always belonged, Saha and Rossi taking up those two spaces. We treated Exeter in similar fashion last year, and what happened - they took us back to their place. The second problem was that the pitch was a mess and even United's reserves aren't used to playing on messy pitches. Nigel Clough's crew are. And the first half was their show, the defence got battered, both Bardsley and Brown had to stop Burton putting the ball in the net way too many time and in short, this was embarrassing!

So, we have Rooney and Ronaldo on the bench, put them on at half time surely. Nope, we'll keep going as is for a bit. Admittedly we started to move through the gears in the second half but it wasn't till we brought on the big guns that we actually started to look like one of the big names of English football, and even then Burton could always rely on midfielder(and United fan) Keith Gilroy to give us a headache. Saha did hit the net at one point but it was given as offside while Rooney found Burton goalie Saul Deaney in the way late on with the now-out-of-contract Albion man having to save with his legs! Overall the only thing that can be said is "OK Nigel, we'll take your guys back to Old Trafford, nice one!"

Brentford for their part headed up to Edgeley Park to take on Stockport, who may be a division lower than them but certainly put up a match. Bees assasin Lloyd Owusu opened the scoring only for the home side to swing things round through Jermaine Easter and Nicholas Briggs. However Martin Allen's crew still came up with the goods thanks to Dudley Campbell and Isiah Rankin.

Elsewhere, two Premiership sides got KOd. Spurs losing a two goal lead against Championship side Leicester was dumb enough however the biggest laugh was League Two Leyton Orient going to Craven Cottage...and coming out with a 2-1 win! As far as round 4 is concerned, well assuming that United can deal with Burton at Old Trafford the next stop on the road to Wembley(fingers crossed on various levels), will be Molenuex, and Glenn Hoddle's Championship Wolves side. Brentford are going to be hosting Sunderland at Griffin Park, now that sounds juicy. High flying League One side hosting the Premiership's bottom side, maybe, maybe.

North of the border, the Dons had a tough trip to Tannadice to take on Dundee Utd in the Scottish Cup 3rd round and the Reds initially got caught with their pants down with David Fernandez hitting a double for the home side before half time. However the Dons turned thing round nicely with Stevie Crawford hitting a double of his own before Barry Nicholson hit the winner for Jimmy Calderwood's crew.

Elsewhere...well there's been a recent volcanic eruption in the middle of Glasgow. The eruption of the force of nature known only as Roy Keane was though to be due to his Celtic debut ending in an embarrassing 2-1 defeat to First Division Clyde in the Scottish Cup 3rd round. The volcano was thought to be felt by everyone at Celtic football club! As far as round 4 is concerned, will all I can say is that the football gods must be having a laugh! After one tough all-Premiership tie, Aberdeen have been drawn away to Hearts despite a load of lower League clubs still being in the draw.

Ah well, next up is the Carling Cup semis.

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