Manchester United brush aside Derby to earn Carling Cup final place

There could be no better illustration of Manchester United’s strength in depth than the sight of what was essentially a reserve team reaching the Carling Cup final, but the concern for Sir Alex Ferguson last night, as his dressing-room began to resemble a casualty ward, was that his vast squad will be tested to the limit if they are to continue their quest for success on all fronts over the coming weeks.
It was a night of six goals — three of them coming in the final ten minutes, when Giles Barnes, with a penalty and a free kick, restored a little pride and hope for Derby County — but, alarmingly for Ferguson, there were seven United players who required treatment at the final whistle. Most were trivial cases, with Gary Neville, Ryan Giggs, Nani and Carlos Tévez all expected to be fit to face Tottenham Hotspur in the FA Cup fourth round on Saturday, but Anderson, the Brazil midfield player, will have an X-ray on an injured ankle this morning, while Rafael Da Silva and Jonny Evans, the two youngsters who have made such encouraging progress this season, face short layoffs after suffering hamstring and ankle injuries respectively.
It is to be hoped that players such as Rafael and Evans are fit enough to play in the final — where Burnley or, in all probability, Tottenham will provide the opposition — having used this competition as a launch pad for their leap into Ferguson’s first-team plans this season. But the final at Wembley on March 1 falls between the two legs of United’s Champions League first knockout-round tie against Inter Milan, which will give Ferguson cause to be pragmatic over his team selection. Such are the concerns for a manager chasing success on four fronts to add to the Community Shield and the Club World Cup, which have already been sent to the Old Trafford trophy room this season.
A place in the Carling Cup final always seemed likely for United after they had emerged from a torrid first leg with only a one-goal deficit. Ferguson admitted in his programme notes last night that his team “could easily have been beaten by three or four goals” at Pride Park and that they were “just plain lucky to get off so lightly”, but he also expressed confidence that they would punish Derby for their profligacy a fortnight ago.
With three goals in the opening 34 minutes, thanks to Nani, John O’Shea and Tévez, United blew Derby away, but Barnes, with a goal either side of Cristiano Ronaldo’s penalty, at least gave Nigel Clough, the Midlands club’s new manager, some cause for hope before a keenly awaited FA Cup fourth-round tie at home to Nottingham Forest on Friday.
For now, Clough wears a slightly bemused expression, but, if the kind of defending he saw in the 2-0 defeat at home to Queens Park Rangers on Saturday and again last night is to be the norm, he is in trouble. The opening goal from Nani, in the seventeenth minute, was stunning in its execution. The Portugal winger cut in from the left and hit a right-foot shot past Roy Carroll and into the top corner, but the resistance he faced was non-existent, with Gary Teale appearing almost to wave him on his way.
The same applied for O’Shea’s goal six minutes later, with the defender inexplicably played onside by Teale as he took his time to score from Danny Welbeck’s perceptive pass. As for Tévez’s thumping header, which made the scoreline 3-0, it goes without saying that the forward was unmarked, this time from a cross by Rafael.
At that stage Derby were facing embarrassment, so much so that Robbie Savage, the former Old Trafford reserve, was brought on at half-time in the interests of damage-limitation. Less easy to fathom was Ferguson’s decision to send on Ronaldo for the final half-hour, given that the tie already seemed to be won. Perhaps it was a treat for the first-time visitors in a remarkably healthy crowd or perhaps it was in the hope of giving him the opportunity to get back on the scoresheet after scoring only once in his previous 13 appearances. Either way, his goal came in the 89th minute after Carroll, the former United goalkeeper, brought down Tévez, leaving Ronaldo to convert the penalty with his customary composure.
The final word, though, was to go to Barnes, a young player of great promise whose career has been on hold since he suffered a serious knee injury last season. The midfield player had relished the opportunity to reduce Derby’s arrears with a penalty with ten minutes remaining, after Evans, by now a passenger, brought down Kris Commons, and then, after Ronaldo’s penalty had ended the contest, Barnes surfaced again in stoppage time to score with a well placed free kick.
That was the cue for a roar from the 12,000 travelling Derby supporters, who implored their team forward for the goal that would have forced an improbable period of extra time, but, under the circumstances, they will settle for the surge in confidence that Barnes’s late brace brought in advance of that neighbourly spat with Forest.
Manchester United (4-4-2): B Foster — Rafael Da Silva (sub: D Fletcher, 43min), G Neville (sub: J Chester, 67), J Evans, J O’Shea — R Giggs (sub: C Ronaldo, 58), D Gibson, Anderson, Nani — D Welbeck, C Tévez. Substitutes not used: T Kuszczak, P Scholes, R Possebon, Z Tosic. Booked: Rafael, Fletcher.
Derby County (4-4-1-1): R Carroll — P Connolly, M Albrechtsen, A Todd (sub: N Barazite, 62), J Stewart — G Teale, P Green, M Addison, S Davies (sub: R Savage, 46) — K Commons (sub: G Barnes, 68) — R Hulse. Substitutes not used: S Bywater, L Nyatanga, S Hines, E Villa. Booked: Addison, Green, Carroll.
source:the london times