andym

hopefully we can start putting away some of these chances 2nd half. i like how we are mixing it up a bit more today. weve tried the usual long ball and get it wide and cross it, but we are also passing it about a bit better. milner, ash, downing have all been interchanging, carew and gabby are taking it in turns to drop short or come out wide. keeps the opposition guessing.

this is dire yet again all we have is aimless balls into the box for heskey and carew to not get. playing right into stokes hands with the wind against us this half surely we should be passing it on the floor?

agree with those ratings. warnock doesnt seem the same since his injury and neither does collins. stan looks less than 100% as well. we were very poor apart from 15 -20 mins in the 2nd half when we destroyed them. i dont think ive seen such a difference in a players performance than between 1st half carew and 2nd half carew. went from truly awful to unplayable. ash had a similar game to this as well. back to Wembley we go!

what did carew have in his halftime tea!!

carew is done here. another pathetic lazy display, hes been outmuscled every time and yet again even fails to attempt to get on the end of a ball across the 6 yard box. heskey has been dire again. his weakness in the tackle led to the break for their 2nd. the delivery from young, downing and milner has been rubbish and broke down every attacking opportunity weve had get fonz on, get delph on, get luke young on. get some players on who can actually be bothered. and get some new tactics MON- this hoofball and get it wide at all costs is not working with those 2 statues upfront

another awful cross, this time from downing

thank god for richard dunne!! this is pathetic, being completely outplayed. heskey and carew have done nothing so far. get the fonz on for one of them, at least he will look bothered

it was an obvious red and i think perhaps it could have made a difference. man u would have lost there best CB for 85 minutes leaving them with evans and neville/carrick/brown back there. i suspect we might have had more joy lumping balls into the box against them, but thats just a guess to not even give him a yellow was more shocking, and added to the yellow he got for a cynical kick on gabby in the 2nd man u should have been down to 10 at some point. booking downing but then not booking carrick for the same thing, and letting rafael get away with 2 bad fouls in a minute was also a disgrace. even the commentators were saying it was wrong!

It was Dunne who lost the ball to Berbatov. Dunne did the unusual mistake that cost a goal. nope cuellar is the one who while under no pressure on the right with the ball at his feat under total control with no utd player anywhere near him decided to turn back and pass it to a utd player, the ball then went to the other side of the pitch where the dunne mistake happened. cuellar was the one for me who made the mess up. wrong it was a clearance from their keeper straight to dunne who had all the time in the world but made a hash of it. he was actually unlucky in the end because he got back and made a great challenge, unfortunatly the ball fell perfectly for owen.

Gutted didnt play as well as we know we can and some players were below what they have produced, but i dont think we disgraced ourselves at all. man u were good in possesion but they didnt have loads of chances.it really was an excellent header by rooney, going backwards and putting it right in the spot brad couldnt quite reach. i hope he keeps this form going into the world cup. our best player was probably gabby. superb running of the channels, hold up play etc. would have impressed capello. he had vidic and rafael shit scared with his pace. vidic should have been sent off, either a straight red for the penalty, or for 2 yellows. milner was good too, and the other midfielders in patches. i thought ash and downing worked hard but there were some tackles they werent fully committing to and their final ball was poor. cant afford that against man u. petrov looked injured and ill but still gave his all. defence looked shakey at times to be honest. collins didnt have a great game, kept giving berbatov far too much room and as hansen pointed out got drawn to the ball for the winning goal. if he had stayed with rooney then it would have stayed 1-1 i think. carlos did his best but he isnt a right back! still, the experience will do us good, and i think man u having so much experience of finals (as well as having rooney) was the difference in the end.

enjoyed the game. though we dominated totally apart from a 15 min period up till they scored the pen. that seemed to knock us back into action and we went on to deservedly get the win. i liked how we mixed it up today and played a lot more on the floor through the middle as well down the wings. some of the movement in the first half was excellent from everybody, lots of balls into the forwards feet, through balls for the overlapping fullback. good stuff. if we had taken better care of our final ball and finishing tonight it would have been a rout. there were several times where we had an opportunity to square up the keeper and have a simple tap in:gabby when he shot instead of passing to carew, warnock when he hit it too hard across infront of carew, and milner messed up a pass to gabby in the second half. dont think anyone was bad. carew was average until the last 15 but then he suddenly clicked into gear and looked dominant. ridiculous strength and hold up play to win the 2 penalties. guzan had a massive miscommunication with cuellar in the first half and looked hesistant to come off his line on crosses, but Brad Snr always sticks to his line as well. difference is the defence know this and brad knows they will be heading it clear, so you dont see miscommunications. just down to experience and playing together. that will come for guzan. bit annoyed with ash for coming over to shout at him for messing up considering the amount of times he gave the ball away trying to do to much when he players in great positions to score gabby was excellent in terms of hold up play, running the channels etc and showed great movement and header for the goal. shame he missed a couple of others but a 1 in 3 chance conversion is in line with other strikers.downing looked way more confident tonight: good movement, passing and he was picking up the ball and running with it. we should have had it wrapped up by half time to be honest, and that would have meant we could rest a few like gabby who looked knackered and feeling his calf after 60 mins. but we are through and that is all that matters. have to be more clinical on sunday though

hopefully we will see gabby and stan rested as they are carrying knocks, dunne as hes our best defender and we need him for sunday, and maybe jimmy as he needs a break. should still be able to put out a strong team as youve got collins,cuellar (or maybe davies) luke young and warnock at the back. delph, downing (he should be on a high after 2 goals sunday), ash and whoever else in midfield. maybe albrighton instead of ash if hes fit. then carew and fonz upfront. goalie doesnt bother me

why sidwell and not delph?

here comes big john

great play by gabby there again, great hold up and lovely ball out to ash,

a lovely ball inside by carlos in the build up there

yessss !! lovely play

we're on a rampage now!! look like scoring every time we go forward. superb turnaround

yess!!!! beautiful counter attack. great play by milner and gabby again, nice finish by heskey

blimey nearly the hatrick, nice corner routine

lol, gabby **** up and then downing gets a lucky one

yess!!! great play by gabby and ash to set up downing

pathetic start to the second half. the midfield out there today cost over 40 mil MON and yet are incapable of making even the simple passes. what do you do in training? we look like the team sitting near the bottom. burnley are controlling the game at the moment!

christ all over the place again! inability to keep the ball and giving it away cheaply in our own half

same troubles weve had since xmas- struggling to create and score. guess thats what happens when you keep playing the same tired team and tactics. needs to shake it up a bit to give us a spark. weve had all the ball, we can win it off burnley easily enough but we do nothing with it. we cant string 3 passes together in the opposition half. the only game plan is to get it wide and cross it, but both downing and young have been poor at doing this. the best bit of footy we played involved keeping it on the floor, into feet and we set up a great chance where stan should have done better. why we dont try and play more like this i dont know. big improvement needed second half