The Premiership took a break this weekend as the FA Cup reached the quarter finals. Yesterday's early kick-off saw Birmingham take on Bolton with Birmingham looking to become only the fourth team to win the domestic cup double, Bolton were looking to reach the semi-finals for the first time in eleven years. It was a cagey first half with a lot of the action being limited to long balls, Alex McLeish's injury got worse during the first half as both Jiranek and Ferguson had to be subbed. Despite the lack of meaningful attacks, Bolton did take the lead with Elmander breaking the deadlock after 21 minutes. From there Birmingham started the play the ball a little better and got the reward when Cameron Jerome fired a half volley into the near post corner to make it 1-1 seven minutes before half-time.
The second half had much better football with both now having settled into the tie. Referee Phil Dowd had to make a big decision when Jaaskelainen looked to have brought down Jerome in box, Dowd gave a corner and replays showed it was the right decision. Bolton went down the other minutes later and the introduction of Chung Yong Lee really helped the cause; he made a run into the box before passing it inside to Elmander, his shot was blocked but managed to poke the ball through to Kevin Davies to score, but Davies was offside and the goal didn't stand. But just a minute later Kevin Davies was hauled down by Curtis Davies in the box and Bolton were awarded the penalty, Kevin Davies stepped up and slotted past Foster after 66 minutes. Birmingham equalised ten minutes from time when Kevin Phillips managed to lob Jaaskelainen with a poke. But any chance of replay, just after these two meet in the league, were dashed when Chung Yong Lee headed past Foster in the final minute of normal time, Bolton going through 3-2 winners.
The late kick-off saw the showdown between Manchester United and Arsenal at Old Trafford. Arsenal were looking not to be eliminated from three cups in just two weeks while United were looking to bounce back after two consecutive league defeats. Both teams were injury hit with Szczesny, Fabregas and Waltcott out for Arsenal, Ferdinand, Nani and Park out for United. Although Arsenal still had a familiar looking line-up United's mid-field looked very odd, twins Rafael and Fabio were out on the wings with O'Shea partnering Gibson in the centre. It was the tale of two strategies as usual with Arsenal looking to dominate possession but try to walk it in, with United looking to counter and shoot when possible. When Arsenal did shoot they were thwarted by a fantastic Van Der Sar. But United broke the deadlock two minutes before the half hour mark; Rafael picked the ball up and ran halfway into the Arsenal half, he squared it inside to brother Fabio who played it to Rooney, Rooney chipped it over into the path of Hernandez whose shot was parried by Almunia only for Fabio to get to the rebound to score.
The second half saw Van Der Sar pull off yet more unbelievable saves and despite Arsenal's decent start to the second half, they were soon two down. The half-time introduction of the long absent Valencia was a big welcome to Sir Alex Ferguson and he soon brought back what United had missed, a decent cross mixed with creativity. Rafael made another dangerous run into the box with the ball, he played it out to Valencia who whipped in a cross but Hernandez's shot was blocked, only for Rooney to head home from a tight angle four minutes into the second half. Both could've scored after that but both Almunia and Van Der Sar pulled some great saves but apart from the obvious woes for Wenger, he suffered another injury blow with Johann Djourou looking to have sustained a dislocated shoulder in the last ten minutes of the game. United progress into the semi-finals along with Bolton.
No comments:
Post a Comment