The Devil In Me

Back in the 80s Carling was an entirely different company. Their beer was invariably connected to superhuman feats of derring do in absolutely fantastic adverts such this one:

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And, in an act of foresight quite improbable, they even managed to include an early Ben Foster in this one:

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Today, the beer now hides behind the shiny gloss of 21st Century marketing but there are those of us who recall when it was associated with being a bit of a legend.

The association between Carling and legends is alive and well though. What a fantastic keeper Ben Foster is. The last time United really tested him he came off the bench two seasons ago, and did fine well, but to recover from the injury lay-off he has had is phenomenal. What a performance.

United came out of the traps flying in this game but we ran out of puff pretty quickly. There hasn’t really been the cutting edge of last season all this term and it showed again today. In my head I have been saying that this is down to the fixture pile-up (and I believe that it is) but these games are not going to go away just because we are tired.

All in all, you have to give the best chances of the game to Spurs, and were it not for our third choice goalie the trophy would be in London now. It isn’t, and Ferguson’s haul of trophies is now somewhere in the gajillions.

The reality is though, a team near the bottom of the premiership took us to penalties in a cup final. I don’t think for a second that Spurs should be where they are in the league but if we can’t break them down in two hours what on earth are we going to do with Inter?

We have a lot of tired players at the moment, Evra, Ronaldo, Scholes, Ferdinand and Tevez all played the full 120 minutes. Will it cost us down the line? I am not sure.