Looking to United for League Cup lift

I got to see two good games in London over the weekend, both hugely enjoyable even if neither of them produced quite the result I was looking for. On Saturday Chelsea had 29 attempts on goal against Stoke with around a dozen of them on target. They might easily have won by half a dozen goals rather than just Frank Lampard’s mid range effort deep into injury time but City, to be fair, battled hard and Thomas Sorensen was quite brilliant.
  Darren Bent, on the other hand, was appalling for Tottenham after coming on as a first half substitute. The club’s fans always moan about how useless he is but I could never quite see it until Sunday afternoon when, amongst other crimes, he headed what would have been an easy winner wide from two yards. I even had him in a fantasy league team on the basis of his low price and pre season form but I shall now be removing him from all aspects of my football pursuits with a ruthlessness that Uncle Joe Stalin would have been proud of.
 An extra goal for either team would have given me a return and had Bent scored it would have completed a double that had also involved Blackburn beating Newcastle on Saturday and provided an overall profit.
  Instead, I’ve slumped to my lowest total yet and need an immediate bounce. I’m going to look to Manchester United in the League Cup for it. Alex Ferguson’s side may not field his strongest 11 for the second leg of the semi-final against Derby but the team that played two weeks ago should have been capable of winning and as he spoke about how many more than one they could have lost by afterwards he looked like a man who was going to put a rocket up some behinds.
 Ferguson, of course, has bigger fish to fry but he tends not to pass up the chance to appear in a cup final in situations like this. Derby, on the other hand, will be desperate to hang on but it’s a difficult situation for them, particularly if they concede early on.
 The handicap is two goals and I think United should be able to do that and, most likely, a little bit more.
Bet
€50 on Manchester United (-2.0) to beat Derby County @ 1.98.

Categories: Soccer