Tuesday, 19th January 2010 – KO: 20:00

Fergie has been playing the usual games all week, both before and after the Burnley game, in terms of the players he has available.

Firstly Berbatov had suffered a recurrence of the knee injury but today it is just a “dead leg” and it will be a case of “seeing how he goes” as to whether he is fit to start.

Then we have new boy Diouf who certainly doesn’t seem to lack confidence and there could even be a case for throwing him into this one while he still doesn’t quite appreciate the rivalry between the two teams and what a win for either will mean to the Red and Blue halves of Manchester. Fergie has dropped his name into conversations as a teaser that he might play.

Then there are the others such as Ferdinand. It is hard to imagine Fergie throwing him into a high intensity game such as this, even if fit, but stranger things have happened and there aren’t going to be any less important games coming up in the next few weeks. Fergie insists he is still a little short of full fitness but nothing would surprise me.

He has apparently said that Giggs won’t play and that some of the youngsters will be given the chance to shine again.

Basically, anyone trying to guess the team here would have a better chance of winning the Lottery!

The advantage is ours going into this tie in that we play the second leg at home and I think the order of the day will be to keep it tight and break when the opportunity arises. Whilst it would send the Blues into new heights of hyperbole, even a one goal defeat for us would not be a disaster here as we would have to fancy ourselves to turn it around at Old Trafford.

I was going to analyse the form for this one and it is true that we have been stuttering a bit recently whilst City have been doing well (until they finally met a decent side the other day) but I don’t think any of that matters.

I only hope that the United players draw on their vast experience for this one and remain patient whilst at the same time hoping that the City players get sucked into their own hype and over-commit in an attempt to “blow us away” and show to the world that the power shift in Manchester has begun.

Such a scenario could see us pick City off and win this one fairly comfortably.

Basically though, anything could happen here tonight. We will need to take our chances a lot better than we have been doing and we will need to be better at the back. The good news is that, perhaps the Liverpool game apart, some of our better performances this season have been in the bigger games away from home.

Deciding what to be on here is not easy. The bookies have City slight favourites but expect both teams to score. They also think that it will be a low scoring game.

All of this points to a 1-1 draw and this is the correct score with the lowest price about it.

I have been thinking all along that a draw here would be a good result for Manchester United and in view of the unpredictability of a match like this, I think I will keep stakes to a minimum and go simply for the draw. It is not really the type of game to get too involved with from a betting viewpoint.

The bet is 1 point on the Draw @ 3.3 with Bet365.

After a week of Fergie denying that Giggs was fit, he played the entire 90 minutes (as Captain) in this one and as for his claims that he would field a “strongish” side, this was just about as strong a side as he could have played for this one. Whether Neville could be considered a stronger choice than Rafael at right back being the only position up for any kind of debate.

There was no sign of Welbeck, Obertan, Nani, Park or any of the other young or “fringe” players.

Forget that this was the Carling Cup. It might as well have been the European Cup. Fergie would have played exactly the same side given the players available to him.

City also played just about as strong a side as they could muster.

This meant a lot to both teams.

The first half was almost all Manchester United as City, quite surprisingly, sat back an awful lot. This gave us lots of time and space in the middle of the park to pass the ball around, almost at leisure.

The right side seemed almost vacant as time and time again, balls sent in the direction of Valencia saw him in acres of space and more often than not, he puts in a decent cross.

This was the case after 16 minutes when he fired it into Rooney who saw his deft touch saved by Given only for the ball to fall to the feet of Giggs who only had to tap it into the net for a 1-0 lead.

I thought this would have brought City out a bit more but, strangely, it didn’t really and we continued to enjoy good possession and Valencia continued to enjoy lots of room over on the right.

However, as has been the case on many occasions so far this season, we were simply unable to convert the possession and territorial advantage into goals.

Tevez was doing his usual headless chicken impression and getting nowhere fast in truth and it was Bellamy who was the real thorn in our side. Doubling up at left back one minute and then running down the left wing the next, he gave Rafael quite a few problems (he would have skinned Neville alive, in truth).

This led Rafael to take the desperate measure of grabbing his shirt. The offence started outside the penalty area and, even with the slow motion replays, it was not quite possible to determine if it had continued inside the area but that is where Bellamy decided to fall down and the ref had no hesitation in pointing to the spot.

The United players surrounded him and he held up two fingers, presumably to suggest that Rafael had done it twice during the passage of play and it was the second offence that he had been penalised for.

Shirt-pulling has been something of a pet issue for refs this season and we have already had a penalty awarded against us for the offence but if it is an offence (and it is) then surely it is an offence ALL the time and not just when the ref decides it is?

The ref should have blown the whistle as soon as Rafael grabbed Bellamy’s shirt some three yards outside the area.

And refs should do this in EVERY game EVERY week.

Anyway, it was a penalty and up stepped Tevez to take it. Van Der Sar did his bit to put him off by taking a bit of time to get himself settled (and was duly booked for it) and then Rooney was seen saying “Watch the post” as Tevez made his run up but it was all to no avail as he blasted the ball straight down the middle into the net.

Under the circumstances, it was great composure under enormous pressure from Tevez, I’ll give him that.

1-1 with half time upon us – a very good time for City to score.

The second half saw City come into the game much more and after 65 minutes, they were ahead again after a header from Tevez. It was quite a brave header and the kind that only someone with a face like Tevez would go for.

My problem with it was with our defence.

The ball fell to Vincent Kompany and both Evans and Brown were sucked in towards him, leaving a massive gap for Tevez behind them.

Now I am no defensive tactical mastermind but surely only one of the defenders should have gone to close the ball down? The other should have stayed back?

Whatever, the ball went over the pair of them and Tevez headed home from about a yard out.

2-1 to City.

After that, we created quite a few chances and had quite a few attempts on goal, most of which were dealt with by Given and the one time he was beaten, City had a man on the line to clear.

All in all, I do think a draw would have been a fair result here. United didn’t really deserve to lose but didn’t do enough to deserve to win. City let us play in the first half and we let them back into the game by not taking full advantage of their generosity.

However, whilst I felt that a draw wasn’t a bad result for us, I did say that a one goal defeat wouldn’t be the end of the world either.

We can now look forward to the return leg at Old Trafford next Wednesday when we could well have both Vidic and Ferdinand back.

City might have won the battle but the war is far from over.

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