Only if you mean that by different his view would be warped enough by bias to be wrong. Shawcross went in for the ball fully committed, exactly as a centre half should. Unfortunately things went a little badly, but these things happen. Arsenal (i.e. Wenger) just got petulant over the ill luck they'd had with a few injuries. Tony Pulis' comments post match were spot on.

I thought Rio and Brown looked fairly shakey. Hernandez was wasted out wide, I do hope Fergie won't stick to chucking him out wide in games to accommodate him like he has done in the past with other strikers.

Macheda was unlucky not to have brilliant service, but he had one glorious chance which he should've taken. Ketchup should be chucked onto the scrapheap too, he had an absolute shocker.

He'll be seeing if Hernandez can do a job outwide due to the Valencia injury as we don't really have much cover on that side.

It wasn't a premier league footballers challenge. It was a sunday league challenege. I remember a few years back I was playing Sunday League as a favour as I always played Saturday (dare I say it but at a higher level). I got the ball and every time was taken out in whatever way. What p!ssed me off the most was these horrible things probably didn't have to get up on a monday morning for work, but I did! No good for me having a broken leg just because their clumsy. I remember saying to a ref once..."and you wonder why you don't get footballers playing at this level"

That tackle reminded me Sunday League. A stupid "lets go through them let them know their in a game" challenge to try and impress their mates.

Fair points.

The club are investing more in youth – the amount we are spending each season is obviously not sustainable. The club have apparently looked at Barcelona’s model of youth development, and are looking at replicating that. I guess that will take several years to pull off. This will involve bringing in youth footballers from all over the world. That’s reflected in our current youth team squad – even though we had more players in the England U18 (or was it u17) squad than any other club in the PL. I think last year we had four international captains in our u18 squad.

One of the major changes the club had to make in order to improve the recruitment of players (including youth) was to improve the scouting network. I think I read somewhere that United and two or three other clubs in the PL had as many as four times more worldwide scouts than we did. If memory serves, Blackburn had more scouts than City. We now have more scouts and the scouting network said to be far better organised.

On a separate point, you made a good post on Bluemoon in the last day or so re Mancini. I thought you were spot on.

I disagree. It was a 50-50 ball and Ramsey was just as much charging at him. Ramsey simply got there first and there was a clash of legs on the follow through. Nothing to do with trying to impress anybody. If a player didn't go in for a loose ball like that situation he'd be accused of being windy.

Why can't you win the Carling Cup and finish 3rd or 4th?



United have won the CC the last two years and they haven't finished outside the top four.

I disagree that it was a 50/50 ball. It was Shawcross's ball. He was involved in an earlier challenge, he had possession of the ball, he was involved in a collision with an Arsenal player which hampered him. Then Ramsey launched himself in the air to nip in to win the ball. Unfortunately for him he was nipping in to win the ball at the same time as Shawcross was swinging at the ball to play the ball down the Arsenal end.

As to whether my opinion would change if it was a Chelsea player. At the time of the incident I'm sure club bias would have made me see a viscous assault on a Chelsea player. But by the third or fourth replay I think I'd be able to say honestly that it was an honest challenge and just a collision that happens. IMO there are 20 challenges a week where a player swings in in a manner that legs could be broken. It's just that most of the time players hurdle tackles or jump to evade them.

I've got to side with Citeh on this one a little. United and Chelsea have learned to battle on all fronts and manage to compete in all competitions while collecting trophies.

Citeh haven't even finished in the top 4 yet. They haven't experienced what it's like to need to win week in week out in the league while playing in Europe during the week. They haven't experienced finals. Citeh have a great deal to learn, and obviously have to learn everything quickly.

You just can't point to what United/Chelsea have done and then say Citeh should be doing it as well. Liverpool and Arsenal have managed to take top 4 spots for a few years but they haven't managed to win anything.

If only a divvy Citeh fan hadn't been tossing himself off over Citeh's magnificent youth policy a few years back. I seem to remember him trying to claim that Citeh finishing mid-table with home grown players was a far more satisfying and meaningful achievement than Chelsea winning the league with players they'd bought.

But then again, that Citeh div also has the temerity to whine that other clubs were jealous of Citeh's money after the Sheikh bought them.

Obviously that div will now claim that he was only joking in the past. It's just a coincidence that his joking happens to match whatever Citeh are doing at the time.

Because we dont yet have United, Arsenal, or Chelsea's developed systems of play, running throughout the club.

If United play their 2nd/3rd team in the early rounds of the Carling Cup it will still look and play like a United team. Ditto when Wenger fields his youngsters its obviously an Arsenal team. Their reserves and juniors are all familiar with the club's style of play and can step easily into the first team.

The youngsters that played for City on wednesday are still learning Mancini's system. When we make wholesale changes we end up looking like a team of strangers. At this stage in our development, if we are to target one of the cups we have to play close to our strongest line up. That's not realistic given that the CL spot is much more important.

Brown had a bit of a shocker and Rio didn't have the greatest of games but both are playing themselves back to full fitness so i'll give them the benifit of doubt there. As for Hernandez i think Fergie will play him outwide mainly to get used to the pace of premiership football and with the style of play, he's done this before with Fletcher and Rooney.

Ketchup is shocking that is all i have to say about him

It had been Shawcross' ball, but it broke loose sufficiently to be a loose 50-50. If you knock the ball that far away from you, you can't really claim it's still yours.

Either way, doesn't change what was just an unfortunate occurrence in a physically competitive sport, with no malice or intent involved.

What did you make of the Wilkinson "challenge"?

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2010/09/why_rbs_looks_set_to_own_liver.htmlLiverpool to fall into the hands of RBS?[/url

If this happens does this mean "we" would own Liverpool?

There's great potential here for an Ebbsfleet United on a much bigger scale.

Carling Cup Draw:

Newcastle v Arsenal
Birmingham v Brentford
Wigan v Swansea
Aston Villa v Burnley
Leicester v West Brom
Man Utd v Wolves
West Ham v Stoke
Ipswich v Northampton

They never even showed a replay of it, but Chelsea should have had a pen in the 10th minute. Zabeletta was the wrong side of Drogba for a cross and stuck his arm across to stop the ball falling for Drogba.

Pretty even game, though I think we're shading it. It'd help if Ramires remembers that we're the team in the black shirts today because he's obviously struggling with that.

Not seen it yet.

City fans singing "one greedy bar steward" to Daniel Sturridge when came on. Oh the irony. Clueless as ever.

And City can have all the money and all the players in the world for the "style" of football they are playing. Dull as the dullest ditch water.

No real complaints about the defeat. We didn't create enough and didn't do enough to break down a massed defence.

Thought that Mariner was a complete joke. Silva blatantly kicked Alex from behind twice and he gives nothing. Think that Citeh will struggle when they do reach the top and don't get away with their physical tactics. Don't know how the ref can't see their use of players to charge into opponents so their team mates can pick up the ball.

Ramires very poor. Essien wasted way too many decent positions with poor shots from distance. No matter how poor Drogba had been, I just don't see what Sturridge has ever done to replace him.

Think the goal was dreadful defending from us. The second season in a row where we've just ran back and allowed Tevez to run from distance unopposed until he shoots. Make the challenge early, if he beats you you still have a chance to recover. If he beats two challenges to earn the shot then fair enough, but to back off, back off, back off, oh damn he's just scored is just not good enough.

Alan McInally has just done a Kamara and missed a Blackburn goal in the game against Blackpool, insisting it was 0-0 but having to be told by Stelling that there had been a goal.

Is this the Chelsea beaten at home by Newcastle and turned over by citeh in 72 hours?

Sunderland 2-1 up at Liverpool

West Brom 2-0 up at Arsenal

very even match tbh coul of gone either way. Marriner was a joke both ways tbh Ivanovic was very lucky with some of the things he gt away with. And our rough tactics it isnt bloody crown green bowling cant take a good tough challenge dont play the game yeah?? Though De jong and Toure were immense today broke down a lot in the middle. Chlesea midfield didnt have the heart today plain and simple