Best of… Wednesday, January 27th, 2010.
1. Who said the Carling Cup is meaningless? In a Manchester Derby for the ages, United got themselves through to the Carling Cup final and evaded extra-time thanks to Wayne Rooney’s injury-time header. While City went to Old Trafford after their 2-1 victory in the first leg of the semi-final, United prevailed by the score of 3-1. Paul Scholes and Michael Carrick seemed to have sent the Reds to Wembley with their respective goals before Carlos Tevez evened the goal differential at 3-3 with a spectacular effort. Nevertheless, the White Pele has done it once again.
2. Reclaiming its spot atop the Premier League table, Chelsea handsomely defeated Birmingham City by the score of 3-0 at Stamford Bridge. Carlo Ancelotti showed no mercy to Alex McLeish’s squad that held Chelsea to a draw in Birmingham a month ago. After Florent Malouda latched onto Joe Cole’s cross to open the deadlock in the 5th minute, Frank Lampard’s brace ensured three points for the Londoners. With a game in hand, Chelsea are on 51 points, while Manchester United has 50 and Arsenal have 49.
3. Arsene Wenger will be frustrated to leave Villa Park with only a point after Martin O’Neill’s side did well to prevent the ever-potent Arsenal from getting on the scoresheet. Despite the nil-nil draw, title-chasing Arsenal were the better side, as Villa keeper was saved by his skinny white friend twice as Cesc Fabregas and Tomas Rosicky both hit the woodwork. Arsenal have gone a remarkable 12 years since their last defeat at Villa Park, but, once again, no fan of the Gunners cares about that at the moment.
4. Continuing a run of good form, Everton dominated Sunderland at Goodison Park to move the Toffees into 9th place in the Premier League. Tim Cahill nodded Maroune Fellani’s cross into the Sunderland net, and then Cahill flicked on a header for Landon Donovan, who cooly struck a left-footed effort past Craig Gordon. Donovan continues to impress David Moyes, and this was his first Premier League goal. Fellow American Tim Howard also did well to keep a clean sheet.
5. Racing Santander will meet Sevilla in the Copa Del Rey final. Racing Santander travelled to Osasuna in the second-leg of the semi-final only to thrash its opponents 3-0 and progress 5-1 on goal differential. Sevilla, having won 3-0 at Deportivo La Coruña in the first-leg, lost to Deportivo in Andalucia 1-0, but still went through on goal differential. Sevilla are early favourites to bring the Copa Del Rey trophy back to the south of Spain.
In other news, Algeria will face Egypt while Ghana will take on Nigeria tomorrow in the African Cup of Nations semi-finals. The Algeria-Egypt match-up will be an incredibly heated affair because, as I’m sure you all remember, it is the rematch of the World Cup playoff that Algeria won 1-0 to book their ticket in South Africa. England, the United States, and Slovenia will not be happy to see Algeria doing so well, as the North African side defeated tournament-favourites the Ivory Coast in the quarterfinals in extra time.
As highlights from today’s matches become available, they will be embedded after the jump.
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