Manchester City team: Hart, Lescott, Kompany (c), Zabaleta, Kolarov, Barry, de Jong, Y.Toure, A.Johnson (Wright-Phillips, 79'), Silva (Vieira, 86'), Balotelli
Manchester United team: Van Der Sar, Ferdinand, O'Shea (Fabio, 84') , Vidic (c), Evra, Scholes, Park, Carrick, Berbatov (Anderson, 74'), Valencia (Hernandez, 65'), Nani
The first of the FA Cup semi-finals was arguably one of the biggest Manchester derbies for a long time. United were missing Rooney and City were missing Tevez so it was already a question of who was going to missed the most and, after City's 3-0 defeat to Liverpool on Monday, everyone thought City would miss Tevez the most. The king of mind games, Alex Ferguson, was seemingly the victim of a mind game as the United team reflected City's 4-5-1/4-3-3 formation with Berbatov up front on his own when really United play better with two up front, plus Hernandez was in form with a goal against Chelsea on Tuesday. City lined up with Balotelli up front on his own.
It took awhile to get going but it was United who created the opening chances. A quick interchange between Scholes and Park forced the ball through to Berbatov but Hart saved bravely at his feet. Straight from the resulting throw Nani put the ball on a plate to Berbatov along the floor, but the Bulgarian fired over from four yards. After that scare City remained under pressure and Berbatov had a third chance to break the deadlock but looped his header over from a corner. City finally found some rhythm just after the half hour mark with Barry finding some pace but his shot from an acute angle hit the side netting. This gave City momentum and Balotelli fired a long range effort which Van Der Sar was forced to palm over.
The deadlock was broken seven minutes into the second half when firstly Van Der Sar miss-kicked a clearance to O'Shea, O'Shea played it to Carrick who laboured and then telegraphed his pass to Scholes which intercepted by Toure, Toure steamed into the box and fired through Van Der Sar's legs. The goal seemed to flatten United as City became energised and became all over the United half. But despite their attacking intent City couldn't find a second and United belatedly brought Hernandez on after 65 minutes, but their best crosser was taken off in Valencia which seemed like the wrong decision. Just a minute later Nani fired a free-kick that Hart could only push the ball onto the crossbar and City averted the danger. With nineteen minutes remaining United's task became almost impossible when Scholes stupidly lunged into Zabaleta with his studs landing on Zabaleta's leg, Scholes was rightly shown red and United were down to ten. It didn't deter United's attacking threat despite Berbatov's substitution and Carrick looked to redeem himself but his curling shot was well saved by Hart. United couldn't find that crucial break through and were nearly 2-0 down in injury time when Toure was through yet again but Van Der Sar managed to thwart the danger but City make it to their first final since 1976, ending United's second treble bid.
No comments:
Post a Comment