Carling Cup / Jamie "The Pacman" Pacheco / 18 January 2010 /

Jamie Pacheco considers Man Utd's finances, the importance of being Wayne Rooney and of course the best bets as Manchester City host their bitter rivals in the semi finals of the Carling Cup.

In the aftermath of Manchester United's shock defeat at the hands of Leeds in the FA Cup, Sir Alex Ferguson suggested the starting 11 to play Manchester City in the first leg of the Carling Cup would be far stronger than that which he had originally pencilled in. Last week's match was of course postponed (no prizes for guessing why), with Manchester United in the meanwhile picking up three points in a 3-0 win over Burnley that was trickier than the scoreline suggests, whilst Manchester City suffered their first defeat of the Mancini era at the hands of an ever-improving Everton.

The last seven days have, however, also been significant in terms of the general public finding out just what a mess United are in when it comes to their financial affairs; this despite selling Cristiano Ronaldo for £80m, winning the Premier League and making a second consecutive Champions League final. It's worth considering whether Ferguson playing a strong team to give his side the best possible chance of making the final (where they would start as favourites) and ensuring they won some sort of silverware, is worth the risk. Most would argue they have bigger fish to fry than the Carling Cup. Or to get straight to the point: will Wayne Rooney start on Tuesday night? Because that is very likely to be the key to this match. If he starts, Man Utd will have their talisman, top scorer and chief creator of goals around to give City a real game; without him I feel United will struggle.

My gut feeling is Rooney won't start but will be on the bench; Ferguson would be heavily criticised if he picked up a serious injury in this match and missed key Premier League or Champions League ties. Man City weren't great on Saturday afternoon but it was one of Everton's best performances of the season that was chiefly responsible for the defeat. A full-strength City side at home are about right at [2.74] and very good value if Rooney's name isn't in the starting eleven so that should be our first bet for this match.

Ferguson has spoken this week of being in a good position when the second leg comes around with United always confident they can do the business at home in the second leg from a manageable position. Well, 0-0, 1-1 and even 0-1 would all be decent results from a United point of view; the conclusion being that Man Utd won't be going hell for leather if that's the scoreline with the final whistle approaching. And if that reasoning is right, we shouldn't expect a high-scoring encounter here, making the [1.94] on under 2.5 goals our second port of call. When these two sides met earlier in the season for the league, the match famously ended 4-3 with Michael Owen scoring in "Ferguson time" . But the scoreline was more a reflection of the fact City couldn't defend back then and that Craig Bellamy's two goals were amongst the best he's scored throughout his career. City are tighter at the back now and we shouldn't expect lightning to strike again as regards that sort of performance from the little Welshman.

Serie A previewer and part-time Perfect Punter Dave Farrar sometimes talks about resisting the temptation to find an angle that doesn't exist and backing what's staring at you in the face as being the bleeding obvious. With that in mind, back the in-form goalscorer to net first. Besides, it's not like Carlos Tevez ([8.0]) needs any extra motivation to score in this match....

'.$sign_up['title'].'

'; } } ?>

:

:

:

?

: