Manchester United 4-2 Derby County

Well it's Wembley but at what cost. The defence has been decimated, with Ferdinand already out of the reckoning for who knows how long. Evra still a couple of weeks away from being fit as far as we know and then came last night. To lose Da Silva the Gary Neville then th have to have Jonny Evans hobble his way htrough the latter stages was not what the doctor ordered to say the least. Is this competition really worth all the hassle? And what will our defence look like on Saturday.
It has to be said when you look at the weakened teams all the big four play in this competition, it isn't really right that the clubs that make into europe are still given a bye. This used to be a competition that the lesser teams did reasonably well in. But i would say that law change has helped the big boys take a stranglehold on this competition over the last few years. If your United's and Arsenal's had to fight their way through every round i'm not sure you would be seeing one of the big boys in the final every year.
As for the game Fergie kept to his word and played mostly kids , i had felt sure Scholes would play in this after not playing the last two matches but he sat on the bench whilst Anderson was partnered by Darren Gibson. Deby started off where they left off in the first leg trying to play football and if they got anywhere the box they weren't shy of having a pop again. They had one decent shot that was gifted to them by a mistake form Gibson but it flew past the post. Then out of nothing Nani picked it up on the right, cut inside and unleashed one of his thunderbolts that Carroll got his hand to but couldn't keep out. Now United started to dominate and after a poor piece of defending from the visitors O'Shea of all people was left all alone just inside the box to coolly slot home a second goal for United. Another disastrous piece of defending saw a corner go to the unmarked Da Silva who put a great cross in for Tevez to have the simple task of nodding it home. Another great move saw Giggs put a superbly weighted ball through fro Da Silva but ht eyoung Brazillian blasted it over the ball. So though we lost Rafael Da Silva just before the break to an injury we went in 3-0 up and as good as through. It hadn't really been a 3-0 performance though it has to be said.
United were content to saunter through the second half, justifiably with the heavy schedule of games we are in the middle of. Ronaldo came on for Giggs on the hour though at the time i couldn't see the point of that to be honest. Neville went off about 10 minutes later to be replaced by James Chester you thought at the time he might be injured because that seemed a strange decision. Sure enough we heard after the game he was injured. Then when Evans got hurt went off, then came back on limping heavily it started to feel like not such a great night. Whether the injury contributed to Evans giving away the penalty with 10 minutes to go i don't know. Anyway it was slotted by Foster by Barnes and the dreaded prospect of extra time reared it's ugly head. Now Nani went off injured but a nice move that saw Welbeck put Tevez into the box unmarked saw Carroll bundle him over and Ronaldo make no mistake withe spot kick. Even then the game wasn't finished as Barnes hit a superb free kick that Foster couldn't keep out of the far corner. So it's Wembley but to be honest i think i could live without a league cup final if all these defensive injuries come back to haunt us in the league.

Injuries mar the night
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/7841390.stm

The comedy club just gets funnier and funnier
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2009/jan/21/manchester-city-robinho-brazil-hughes-kaka

Simon Jenkins on mad treasury disease
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/jan/21/treasury-banking-keynes-demand

Obama gets down to business, let's hope he does the business
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jan/21/barack-obama-president-first-day-in-office

Sterling is finished says market investor
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/jim-rogers-sell-any-sterling-you-might-have-its-finished-1452384.html

Repeating the early 80's ?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7841349.stm