Newcastle United vs. Manchester United

This post shall be about what was a massive game for my Newcastle team, the League Cup quarter-final against the mighty Man Utd!

The 2 games before the huge game were not great. I encountered my first defeat in the league but came back well with a convincing 3-0 victory against Swansea.

It was now time for the biggest match of my Newcastle career so far.

Here are the line-ups:

I would have preferred to play Macheda upfront with Ameobi but he is unavailable (because he can’t play against his parent club). Also, I would have played Alan Smith with Ramsey instead of Joey Barton, but Alan Smith is suspended also due to one too many yellow cards! Meanwhile, Man Utd played a rested team but it was still very strong with players such as Berbatov, Carrick, Anderson, Valencia, Vidic, O’Shea, the Da Silva brothers and Van Der Sar. Although it would be a tough game I did believe my players had a chance so I said ‘You can with this game!!’.

The first half was action-packed and Leon Best put a shot just wide of the post after 17 minutes. We were forcing Man Utd into taking long shots and we would have been 1-0 up if it wasn’t for a great save by Van Der Sar from Leon Best’s second attempt of the match. Edwin Van Der Sar was forced to make another fantastic save from Shola Ameobi’s long range shot just before half-time. I was pleased with my team’s performance as we were keeping Man Utd out very well and we were creating chances ourselves.

The second half started well again for us, Ryan Taylor’s 20 yard freekick was again saved by Van Der Sar! He was having a great game against us! In the 67th minute Man Utd nearly scored when a corner was poorly cleared by us and a looping header fron 18 yards out was cleared off the line by Jose Enrique, only to be headed back towards goal forcing Enrique to make another great saving header! Just after that, Ryan Taylor passed to Aaron Ramsey from a corner. Ramseys shot from 30 yards out was deflected by another of our players and went just wide!! The deflection could of went anywhere! The last five minutes of normal time was completely end-to-end of both teams should have scored!

The 90 minutes finished 0-0 and it was a great game so far. I was pleased with the players again and sent them out to extra-time hoping we could win without the torture of penalties.

The first half of extra-time was quiet with a few headed chances for Man Utd. We had a huge chance to score though at the end when a fantastic surging run by Jonas down the left hand side found him on the out-skirts of the penalty area and his amazing curling shot went about a centimetre wide of the far post! I thought we had scored :) !

The first chance in the 2nd half of extra-time fell to Man Utd and it was a huge one. Michael Carrick was one on one with our goalkeeper, Tim Krul. His low shot was saved though and I had a big sigh of relief. Only 2 minutes later though we had a massive chance when Ameobi was in on goal but his powerful shot was parried away by the rather heroic Van Der Sar. In the 10th minute of the second period of extra-time we had another huge chance when a fantastic long ball from Ramsey put Lovenkrands in on goal. His shot from 8 yards was dissapointly straight at the goalkeeper though :( ! And just after that a superb free-kick from Ryan Taylor from 35 yards out was saved by Van Der Sar! It was going right in the bottom corner but Van Der Sar done really well to get down there to save it, unfortunately for us.  The 120 minutes finished 0-0 (somehow!) and a great match would be decided by the drama of penalties.

It was a great match (maybe the best I have ever seen on Football Manager) and it would be decided by the lottery of a penalty shoot-out.

Penalties.

Man Utd were shooting first.

ANDERSON SCORES — 0-1

AMEOBI SCORES — 1-1

CARRICK SCORES — 1-2

LOVENKRANDS SCORES — 2-2

FABIO SCORES — 2-3

RYAN TAYLOR SCORES — 3-3

BERBATOV SCORES — 3-4

PANCRATE SCORES — 4-4

O’SHEA SCORES — 4-5

We had to score this penalty…………………….

ENRIQUE SCORES — 5-5 :D (phew!)

GIBSON MISSES — 5-5 :D

It was our chance to beat Man Utd………….. A chance for Kevin  Nolan to be a hero………..

NOLAN SCORES — 6-5 :D :D :D !!!!!!!!!!!

We had won!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was a truely terrific game and I was delighted to have got to the semi-final, where we shall play Bolton.

Bolton is most definetely a winnable game considering we beat Man Utd :D ! We also have Aston Villa in the FA Cup, so my team are really being put through there paces in cup competitions! :D

Thanks for reading,

Calum