The gathering storm: Edwin van der Sar fails to
stop Carlos Tevez's thumping penalty
They were all there at the end, the great and the good
of Manchester
United. Rooney, Giggs, Scholes,
Fletcher, Carrick, Van der Sar, Evra. No line-up of kids,
this.
Not for the first time this season, they came up short. Not for
the first time this season there is no room for excuses.
In a competition he has little regard for, United manager Sir
Alex Ferguson threw everything he had at Manchester
City last night. Local pride, it seems, can cause
previously declared intentions to end up in the waste bin.
What a super evening this was. For City and for Manchester
football as a whole. The rivalry — so one-sided since the likes of
Summerbee, Bell and Lee last called it on in the late 1960s — is
worthy of the name once more.
As much as it will irritate City fans to read it, United were
the better side for much of last night’s game. The football they
played was more controlled. They created more chances. In some
ways, they may still be favourites to progress to the final. But
none of that really matters.
After the bad feeling caused by Carlos Tevez’s summer move
across town and the dramatic nature of United’s victory in the
league back in September, City are well and truly under Ferguson’s
skin now. The Scot’s features were dark as he strode off down the
tunnel at full time.
He has lost at Eastlands too many times for his liking already.
But when he reflects on this game more rationally than he would
have been able to last night, it will be the manner of the defeat
that will irritate him most.
In his calmer moments, Ferguson is adept at taking the emotion
out of football. And when he does he will ask himself how his
players have lost a game they were — for a time —fully in control
of.
A goal to the good and with Eastlands relatively becalmed,
United conceded a needless, if slightly debatable, penalty and then
shipped a quite a dreadful second goal with 20 minutes left.
Van der Sar’s punch was not convincing and then Anderson got
stuck under the ball as it was headed rather innocuously back into
the penalty area. Ultimately, Tevez was unmarked as he headed home
from a yard.
It is not a one-off, either. United have conceded goals like
this all season and that is the great danger that stalks them again
ahead of next week’s return game. They are more than capable of
scoring freely against this under-strength City team. They could
have scored two or three last night.
But at the other end of the field they are vulnerable, whoever
plays. United pretended that they didn’t care much about this
competition. Now we know they do. What is yet to be proven is if
they are good enough to stay in it.