Starting Lineups: Birmingham City Vaesen , Kenna , Cunningham , Upson , Clapham , Johnson , Savage , Clemence , John , Dugarry , Morrison Subs: Bennett , Devlin , Lazaridis , Kirovski , Swierczewski Man Utd Carroll , G Neville , Ferdinand , Brown , Silvestre , Beckham , Keane , Veron , Giggs , Scholes , Nistelrooy Subs: P Neville , Butt , Ricardo , Solskjaer , Forlan Ref: S Dunn (Avon)
HT 0-0 Scholes hit the woodwork and that's about it for now. We still have plenty of firepower on the bench though. I'm pretty confident Sir Alex will light the fire in the dressing room....
HT, so far not much doing. A few chances for either side, Scholes probably having the best chance off the bottom of the crossbar in the 42nd. United looked a little lethargic for a while, but lets hope the momentum from the end of the half carries over.
Yeah, that was a pretty lethargic effort. Lots of bad traps, mishit passes and generally less movement than other games. And yet, the chances were coming in the first half. I kept waiting for Fergie put in Forlan or Ole to inject some energy into the game. Or even Nicky Butt in the midfield (though it would have been tough to remove any of the starting midfielders the way they were playing last night). My guess is had the game gone to 70 mins, we'd have seen either Diego or Ole on for a back, as B'ham didn't seem to be causing much trouble to the defense.
The game had its dull moments. Ruud's goal was actually quite simple & understated. No doubt Brucie will chew out his defenders for not tightening up on Ruud.