With Manchester City threatening to overrun United in the first half, Solskjær tweaked United’s shape and earned his reward with the winning goalIn this second leg a place in the Carabao Cup final beckoned for the team whose manager plotted the better gameplan. Whether Manchester United’s Ole Gunnar Solskjær possesses the tactical vision to outmanoeuvre a coach of Pep Guardiola’s ilk has become a prevailing debate regarding the Norwegian. The argument goes that a man who failed badly at Cardiff City and whose two titles as a No 1 “only” came with Molde in Norway’s top flight is a babe in a land of managerial giants embodied by the Spaniard who leads Manchester City. Related: Manchester City reach Carabao Cup...
Dean Smith gave his new forward Mbwana Samatta his debut yet Jack Grealish showed again he is the heartbeat of the teamThey came to see the new signing Mbwana Samatta but left talking about a player whose roots lie much closer to home. Jack Grealish was born just up the road and joined Aston Villa’s academy at the age of six so he knows what a first piece of silverware since 1996 would mean in these parts.On the evidence of this thrilling performance, during which Villa’s talisman dominated against a Leicester side featuring his potential England rival James Maddison, there can be only one choice for Gareth Southgate when he names his next squad for the friendlies against Italy and...
Pep Guardiola’s call is well placed and better still would be for a streamlined FA Cup to emerge with the final in FebruaryWhen Jürgen Klopp was asked last week for his thoughts on the Africa Cup of Nations being moved to January next year he spoke uninterrupted for almost eight minutes, detailing his dissatisfaction with the burden on players and clubs and the complete lack of meaningful response from anyone in charge of the game when managers complained of the dangers of trying to cram too much into an already crowded fixture list.A few days later when Pep Guardiola was asked for his views on fixture congestion, bearing in mind that Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford had been sidelined long...
The midfielder delivered a mature performance in the 1-1 draw with Leicester, in front of the watching Gareth SouthgateSo then, just who exactly will face Manchester City in the Carabao Cup final this year? On a chilly, wet and fervent east Midlands night came a semi-final first leg that proved much more even and intriguingly poised than the one that came before it. If what took place at Old Trafford was a procession bordering on a humiliation, this encounter at the King Power was a genuine contest, and while Leicester remain favourites to reach Wembley, Aston Villa can take great heart from how they performed and will believe they can make the return fixture on their own patch one to...
An early onslaught from Pep Guardiola’s side gave the watching Sir Alex Ferguson and Ryan Giggs nothing to smile aboutYou can’t hit what you can’t see. On a mild but riotous night at Old Trafford, Manchester City served up a beating as swaggering and dominant as any they have managed at this ground. In front of the grandees of Red Manchester – Wayne Rooney, Sir Alex Ferguson, Ryan Giggs – City executed a coup de grace borne of pure disrespect, United taking the best part of an hour to work out just what, exactly, was going on out there.What had happened was that City had simply disappeared from view, slipped into the cracks, eluded detection. Had Raheem Sterling been a...