It's the Temple of Doom for Ferguson

THEY WILL try to tell us that it is only the League Cup. They will try to remind us that for years they have regarded this competition as little more than an afterthought, cluttering up an already congested fixture list and getting in the way of more important matters. A 50-dollar hooker compared to the supermodels they normally date.

Yet this is a strange time for Manchester United and there can be no doubt how much it will hurt them if they are unable to turn this tie upside down at Old Trafford next Wednesday. Alex Ferguson’s team have already lost five times in the league and been knocked out of the FA Cup by a Leeds United side from League One. For a team that is second in the Premier League, the morale of their supporters is unusually low. And here was the latest indignity: two goals from the striker they lost to City during the summer. United fans used to have a “sign him up” campaign on Carlos Tevez’s behalf at Old Trafford. Here, they will have watched him milking his celebrations through the latticework of their fingers.

Ferguson will argue that the damage is not irreparable and justifiably so given the number of chances his team carved out. Nonetheless, this was still a galling experience for United’s manager on a night when nobody could doubt the seriousness of his devotion to this competition.

Ferguson had initially promised to play his youngsters. Then he backtracked a little after the defeat to Leeds United in the FA Cup and said it would be a mix, but mainly still the kids. What we got instead looked suspiciously like Team A when you consider Edwin van der Sar’s previous appearance in this competition was in the final against Wigan five years ago.

There have been times in the past when Ferguson has seemed almost begrudging to recognise City as genuine rivals. He has called their ground the Temple of Doom and offered City-supporting journalists painkillers at his press conferences. He has spoken of United’s true rivals being Liverpool and Arsenal, even Leeds, with City mentioned only as an afterthought. But here was a team selection that laid bare his fear of allowing the club he has described as “noisy neighbours” turning the volume even higher.

As it turned out, Ferguson might privately regret not going for the more experienced Gary Neville when he considers the impetuousness with which Rafael tugged at Craig Bellamy’s arm to concede the penalty from which Tevez scored. This was the moment the Argentinian had been craving since defecting from Old Trafford last summer and the lingering sense of bad feeling could be seen in the exuberant way he chose to celebrate compared to the dignified show of respect he has afforded West Ham when scoring against another of his former clubs.

Tevez was so pumped up he made a beeline for the touchline where Neville had been warming up and informed his former team-mate, with some gloating hand signal (imagine Rod Hull with an invisible Emu), that he talked too much. Neville had said on the eve of this match that he could not argue with Ferguson’s assessment that Tevez was over-priced at €29 million. When he prodded in the winner he made sure again of letting Ferguson, and all connected with his former employers, know how much he enjoyed it.

Guardian Service