Football Derbies

Well last night at the City of Manchester Stadium we were served up a bore 0-0, I'm not sure if the players forgot it was a derby and played it out. The papers are filled with Manchester United quotes saying that Mancini played so defensively that it spoiled the game, or words to that effect. The City side definitely set out a strong defensive stall, which is fine, I feel they should have attacked more in the last 20 minutes or so, players like Johnson can do wonderful things in attack but were instructed to play from deep. In saying that City were defensive, they still had the two best chances in the match, one being a free kick saved by Van Der Sar, United offered little going forward, again in the wide areas were poor, possibly not helped by both United Full Back's were substituted through injury. The television man of the match was Nemanja Vidic, which is hard to argue with, he has come a long way since his error-prone start at Old Trafford. However, I would have personally given the award to Michael Carrick, he has been known as Side-ways Carrick, like Back-pass Barry(Ferguson) but tonight looked forward a lot more often, and only failed to complete 2 of 61 passes. Although, in my opinion, he will never be as good as Paul Scholes (Who will?) if he could churn out performances like tonight time and again, he will ease a few of United's worries for the future of what already seems a weakening and ageing squad.

Although not seen as one of the fiercest derbies, Chelsea Vs Fulham definitely produced a fierce derby style tackle, from a seemingly unlikely source. Michael Essien, not known as a particularly dirty player, jumped in with two feet, extremely dangerously on Clint Dempsey, instant red card, and probably worth an extra ban. The Stamford Bridge team started the season in free-scoring mood, and have stuttered somewhat, although 3 points is 3 points. Although Schwarzer definitely did well to keep the blues to one, his opposite number Cech did have a couple hairy moments, and Fulham could have grabbed something. At the end of the day, the bore draw in Manchester combined with Chelsea's home victory has given them a 4 point lead at the top of the English premiership. Although not invincible, I can't see the Blues being caught at the top, they may even lose as many if not more games than last season, so it's more of a case that other teams are far to inconsistent to take the title from the Bridge.

In Spain at the weekend Real unsurprisingly demolished an Athletico side, and the Edinburgh derby was another poor affair, not exactly a shock with the two sides form. There was a strange night in Scotland last night, with Hearts winning at home to a poor Celtic and Rangers apparently not being able to complete a pass in losing 3-0 at home to Hibs. Although it grab the headlines, my result of the night was St.Mirren winning 2-1 at Tannadice, despite Dundee Utd missing a few players they should have enough to see off the team which was bottom of the SPL.

This weekend serves up another derby, hopefully it will be create a big bang in Milan. (Sorry) AC Milan are have just taken top spot from Lazio in Seria A, and are looking a lot better, it seems Massimiliano Allegri is not as clueless as once thought. The Milan side are shaping up slightly differently, I will still give the gaffer credit, despite changes being enforced by pirlo's injury, it will be interesting to see if he slots straight in when fit. A different story for inter, dropping two points to Lecce in a 1-1 draw, a very silly goal from a set-piece cost them. However, Inter have many injuries and Milito was left on the bench and Eto'o was all alone up front, and created very little, Milito came off the bench to give his side the lead. I think AC Milan will come out on top to put more pressure on rambling Benitez.