In a hurry this morning so just a brief run through the papers.
The Mail on Sunday match report sees our point as one gained rather than two lost given our injury setbacks before and during the game.
Gary Neville's column is a defence of the Carling Cup, including this bit:
Being on the podium is a drug. Having a medal put round your neck and running round a stadium with the Cup is addictive. I had the privilege to do it lots of times in my career and never got bored.
Interview with Michael Owen in The Observer:
"In many ways that's what harms your chances of a place – the fact that we are so bloody good. The strikers are just fabulous. No matter where you look there are world-class players, and they're a good range of ages, virtually every type of striker. It's one position where we're particularly well off. Even at 31 I'm enjoying learning how different people play and how you can play along side them. That's the positive."
The negative, though, is frustration: battening down the desperate urge to play more regularly. After the Carling Cup tie at Leeds, Owen admits he left the pitch not expecting to start against Stoke on Saturday – in the event he played 80 minutes after Hernández was injured. Owen says: "You've got to enjoy the good days, haven't you? It's nice to remind people you're still on this planet and that you can do it still at this top level."
"Crouch fouls all the time," Ferguson said. "He gets huffy but he jumps on top of defenders all the time, he has been doing that for years. Referees know that, and he maybe caught Phil Jones for the goal, but he is a definitely a handful in the air."
He's right about the general point, and the referee let him get away with climbing and pulling all game, but the goal was good (in the sense that it wasn't a foul, not that it was actually good...).
Finally, Paul Hayward on Hargreaves:
Interesting timing by Owen Hargreaves. Within minutes of his first goal for Manchester City he effectively blames Manchester United's medical staff for his injury problems, suggesting he was used as a "guinea pig" by one of football's most accomplished recovery teams.Let's put ingratitude to one side and unpick the flaws in his wish to be seen as the victim. Hargreaves feels he was failed by United's experts but was still desperate to stay at Old Trafford, even offering to play for free. And the same doctors and physios who held him back have delivered him fit to play for City, despite their supposed recklessness.
By a happy coincidence, Hargreaves was suddenly fit to play at precisely the moment his career was threatened – when United released him. He is lucky that United confined their response to his allegations to a defence of their own staff and chose not to present their side of the story about his absences.
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