United Retains The Carling Cup

Aston Villa 1 - Manchester United 3
Scorers
Aston Villa: Milner (pen 4)
Manchester United: Owen (12), Rooney (74)

Team: Kuszczak, Vidic, Evans, Rafael (Neville 66), Evra, Fletcher, Carrick, Park (Gibson 86), Valencia, Berbatov, Owen (42)

Pretty good game. We conceded early again to Villa for the third time this season, but made a remarkable recovery by winning the game.

Vidic's foul in the 3rd minute on Agbonlahor resulted in a coolly taken penalty by Milner. Villa started brilliantly and were looking really up for the big cup final. Yet against the run of play, Richard Dunne make an uncharacteristic mistake and got robbed by Berbatov in a dangerous position. A desperate tackle left the ball landing at Owen's feet and he fired home the equalizer, setting up an even contest between the two finalists.

No doubts Villa started the stronger of the two teams, but as the game wore on, we slowly began to stamp our authority and the chances began to fall our way. Park could very well have given us the lead before the break, but struck the post. Owen then pulled his troublesome hamstring and had to be replaced by Rooney.

The second half began the way the first ended, with us in total control. There were chances aplenty, but we failed to capitalize. Eventually the hard running on the heavy Wembley surface took it's toil on Rafael and he too was substituted before his time.

Just as it looked like we could be going for yet another extra time and penalty shoot-out in another cup final, enter Rooney. He met Valencia's cross superbly, and his header flew beyond a backpeddling Friedel. It was quite brilliantly done by a man on a mission.

Moments later, he nearly added another to his ever growing tally of headers, but as he was reeling off to celebrate, the powerfully struck effort hit the post instead.

We spent the remainder of the time playing keep ball or trying to hit Villa on the counter. Eventually the final whistle blew and we retained the League Cup.

Just a couple of notes:
- Evra's the captain? You would think the captain of Scotland would be wearing the armband in the absence of the regulars. Kinda strange decision here, but I'm not complaining.

- Everyone ran their socks off. Everyone was simply brilliant, with the little exception of Carrick in the first half. He was terrible during that period, giving the ball away and exceptionally terrible with his freekicks and long range efforts.

- How can anyone not love Park is beyond me. All I can say is that we saw the PSV Park today. All effort, all energy.

- Even Berbatov deserves praise. One of his most hardworking games. You could tell the amount of running he put into the game today. He was bent over taking in huge gasps of air when the final whistle blew. I was kinda worried when Ferguson took out Park with our final substitute instead of Berbatov. Had the game gone into extra time by some fluke, we'd be playing handicapped.

- The Carling Cup is one fugly trophy.

- On a more sour note, it seems the Carling Cup has become our staple in recent year (see 2006, 2009 and 2010). This used to be the cup where we blood our youngsters. It isn't that we don't do it anymore, but as the team progresses, we seem to play it more seriously. It doesn't help that we fuck up on the REAL prize (the FA Cup) and have to do this gig as a makeup. To be really honest, I'm really finding it hard to get excited winning this one. Even an encore doesn't do it. There is a reason why it's called the Mickey Mouse Cup. Give me the FA Cup any day of the week.

- On a brighter note, Chelsea had one too many Bridges to cross at Stamford Bridge. Haha. We're somehow back in the race. It's still Chelsea's title to lose but at the rate they are self-destructing, both on and off the pitch, it could look like a pretty damn good season for us.