Manchester United 2 v 1 Blackburn Rovers Old Trafford, Manchester
18th January 2006
With the tie poised precariously at 1-1 from the first leg, United needed that they needed a result last night, and Wigan's triumph over Arsenal showed them that to rely on a draw getting them through would be wrong!
Fergie may have been through a defensive crisis at the start of the season, when we played about four different people at left-back because of injury, and now it seems to be the midfield's turn! Ronaldo was serving his last match suspended, Smith was ill, Scholes is out for the season, Fortune is still recovering, O'Shea is out with broken Ribs, the list goes on...
In the end it was Saha, Giggs, Fletcher and Richardson in the centre of the park, although this changed again when Giggs was injured, forcing poor ill Smith off the bench and into the melee.
Van Nistelrooy was the first to benefit from Rooney's enterprise, which quite rightly won him the Man of the Match award. Rooney's bustling run was knocking inadvertently into Van Nistelrooy's path, and the Dutchman finished with precision on 8 minutes.
Blackburn rallied, whilst the boys in Red sat back happy with their efforts. Cue an equaliser for Blackburn. It bounced into Reid's path after about 5 deflections from our various overpaid defenders, and Reid finished with a low shot that van der Sar should havedoen better with.
Van Nistelrooy belted the ball straight at Friedel from the spt on the stroke of half-time, having been awarded a penalty for handball. His error was rectified by Saha, however, whose sublime / lucky finish saw the ball sliced into the back of the net.
United face the final on 26th Feb, and it will be a chance for Ronny to get his hands on more silver-ware!
Man Utd: Van der Sar, Neville, Ferdinand, Brown, Evra (Silvestre 80), Rooney, Fletcher, Giggs (Smith 13), Richardson, Saha, van Nistelrooy (Vidic 86).
