ENGLISH LEAGUE CUP FINAL: Manchester Utd v Tottenham:IT ALL began at Port Vale on a September's evening in 1994. Manchester United were the illustrious opponents in the first round of the League Cup and Alex Ferguson had decided to play "the kids". They won 2-1, with two goals from a pimply 19-year-old by the name of Paul Scholes, but the headlines the next day were all about Ferguson's disregard for the competition.
“I always remember the local MP complaining about it in the House of Commons,” Ferguson recalls. “He said the Potteries public were being denied the chance to see great players. He didn’t realise they were being given the privilege of seeing even greater players. The young ones I used that night were David Beckham, Paul Scholes, Gary Neville and Nicky Butt.”
The storm blew over and over the years, United have begun to look like trendsetters as other Premier League clubs have fallen in line and developed their own policies for the League Cup.
Ferguson’s team for tomorrow’s final against Tottenham will be unapologetically young and experimental, with Darron Gibson in midfield and Danny Welbeck playing in attack. “The young players have got us to Wembley and they deserve the chance to finish the job,” Ferguson explains.
“Don’t get me wrong, we want to win it and you can be sure the bench will be laced with experience in case we need it. But we’re very impressed by the likes of Gibson and Welbeck. They’ve come on a tonne for us. They’ve earned the right to be considered first-team players. We’ve seen they have the temperament to do it.
“Yes, you could say they aren’t regulars, but I could also tell you there are 16 or 17 other teams in this league who would happily have them. They deserve to play.”
The emphasis, according to Ferguson, is to reward the players who have helped United overcome Middlesbrough, Queens Park Rangers, Blackburn Rovers and Derby County in the previous rounds, although it will not be the most inexperienced team he has ever put out.
He is reluctant, for example, to partner Gibson with Rodrigo Possebon, meaning Scholes or Michael Carrick will probably play in central midfield. Carlos Tevez has been a regular in this competition and Nemanja Vidic could also be involved. Gary Neville should be fit enough to return to a defence that is missing Rafael da Silva, who has a hairline fracture in his ankle and will be out for a month.
Ferguson, however, will make seven or more changes from the side that outpassed Internazionale in the San Siro on Tuesday night.
“If people are looking for a reason why you have lost, that will be the one. But rotation is part of the modern game. It’s got to be. If I could sit down with the supporters and explain the number of miles the players are running in every match, the intensity they’re running, the speed they’re running, the number of times they have to sprint, they (the supporters) would maybe realise how difficult it is.”
Harry Redknapp will attempt to inject much-needed momentum into Tottenham’s relegation-haunted campaign by retaining the League Cup after admitting the maligned competition has already come close once to wrecking the club’s season.
Victory over would allow Spurs to salvage some pride from a wretched campaign, though the manager conceded that had Burnley held out for another two minutes and successfully overturned their 4-1 first-leg deficit in January’s semi-final, Tottenham’s shattered confidence might have been beyond repair. The London club were taken to extra-time at Turf Moor by the Championship side, only for Roman Pavlyuchenko and Jermain Defoe to score after 118 and 120 minutes.
“It was amazing that we had got to a cup final but we were all so low,” said Redknapp of that evening. “The atmosphere in the dressingroom was pretty horrendous. Everything that came into our box seemed to go in. That was as angry as I’ve been since I came here. I was very, very low.
“Imagine how low we would all have been if we had gone out after winning the first leg as we had. If we had gone out, we would have been in desperate trouble because I don’t know how we would have recovered from that.”
Tottenham’s position remains relatively precarious in the Premier League, if eased somewhat by Monday’s win at Hull City, and there will be no cause to relax even if United are defeated tomorrow. Juande Ramos’s side won three league games after beating Chelsea in last year’s final – they accrued only 14 points from 12 matches – and a repeat of such a downturn in form could yet cost them their top-flight status. With that in mind, Redknapp described Wednesday’s match with Middlesbrough as “massive” and will bear the fixture in mind when selecting his side for the final.
Jamie O’Hara, so impressive against Shakhtar Donetsk on Thursday, and David Bentley will compete for a place on the left, while Ledley King’s knee will be assessed this morning with Michael Dawson to miss out for the second year in succession if the captain is passed fit.
“Ledley hasn’t trained, he never trains,” said Redknapp. “It’s amazing how he still plays because his knee comes up like a balloon after every game and, the next day, he has no chance of doing anything. That’ll never be cured.”
King and his fellow Spurs players will discover this morning who is to feature at Wembley, with Pavlyuchenko – who has scored in every round of the competition – likely to be preferred to Darren Bent as a lone striker, allowing Luka Modric a free role behind the forward. GuardianService
