City and United gear up for FA Cup clash
John | Apr 15, 2011 | Comments 0
The tickets have been bought, foil cups have been made, and the route has been planned. All that is left now is to play the game. Or is it?
Well before a ball is rolled across the hallowed Wembley turf, there is of course the obligatory pre-game comments. Paul Scholes, got proceedings underway earlier today.
“When they are fourth or fifth, or wherever they are in the league, I don’t think they can be classed as a main rival. Our main rivals are obviously Arsenal and Chelsea. I think City are just a rival because of where they are (geographically), and Liverpool the same.” He told the Guardian.
And he is correct. Even since the arrival of the Abu Dhabi Royal family football betting underdogs City have only won one of eight contests between the two sides, a Carling Cup semi-final back in January 2010, and even then United took the tie after a 3-1 victory in the second leg. So why the hyperbole before this weekend’s semi-final?
In truth the arrival of new money at Eastlands has been like a gallon of petrol to a fire that had previously been reduced to embers. As Scholes notes, while United were busy racking up league titles over the past two decades, City were scavenging for scraps of success through the nether regions of lower league football.
Recent years have seen an explosion of action despite City’s struggled to accomplish themselves alongside their illustrious cross-city rivals. But they will have their part to play this weekend, it takes two to tango in a derby, after all.
There was the last-gasp Michael Owen winner in the most thrilling of 4-3’s. Scholes himself has dealt in the dramatic in derbies, stealing another victory for United from the jaws of a draw. Then there was Wayne Rooney’s sumptuous overhead kick that broke the blue half of Manchester’s hearts.
Sure the added spice of “noisy neighbours” and posters announcing the arrival of an Argentinian who made the perilous journey from red to blue add to the encounters but it is on the pitch where the most intuiting drama takes place.
The absence of Tevez and Wayne Rooney will inevitably lessen the quality of the affair, although it is perhaps the team who can cope with the loss of their respective figurehead that will be victorious.
But perhaps the fiercest remaining Premier League derby, spiced up immeasurably by the looming presence of silverware, is unlikely to fail to deliver on the grandest of English stages, no matter what the personnel. Football bets may place United as the favourites, but prepare yourselves for the rollercoaster once more, there are plenty of twists to come.
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