Manchester United 2 Tottenham 0. One would imagine that Sir Alex Ferguson's joy at Darron Gibson's two goals last night that put Manchester United into the Carling Cup semi-final would have been two-fold: first of all, happiness at a pair of sweetly struck long-distance shots in the mould of Paul Scholes; secondly and probably most importantly, relief that Gibson, a homegrown talent, vindicated his manager's blistering 'idiot' attack on critics of the Old Trafford youth production line.
In truth, Gibson's brace put a flattering sheen on what was an otherwise ordinary performance by the home side. After talking up his latest generation of youngsters, Ferguson opted for a pair of first-teamers in Wes Brown and Nemanja Vidic at the back, with Dimitar Berbatov and Ji-Sung Park giving some experience further up the field. They were facing a Spurs side with three of their key attacking players in the starting line-up - Aaron Lennon, Jermain Defoe and Robbie Keane - as a sign of Harry Redknapp's desire to eke something from the fixture.
The home side started brightly, and Anderson should have done better when he had the beating of Heurelho Gomes within the first two minutes but put his effort wide. Defoe had the next chance, bringing a sharp save from Tomasz Kuszczak - again preferred to Ben Foster in the Man Utd goal. Gibson made the first breakthrough just after the quarter-hour mark, shooting precisely into the bottom left of Gomes' goal after neat approach play from Anderson.
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Within minutes Defoe was denied an instant equaliser by a crucial block from Man Utd youngster Ritchie de Laet, before Gibson bagged his second of the night. Again set up from the left flank, Gibson played a short one-two with Danny Wellbeck before burying the ball in the top right of Spurs' goal. He was almost joined on the scoresheet Berbatov, who scuffed a shot on the stroke of half time that would have killed the game stone dead.
Spurs emerged the brighter from the half-time interval, and could have halved the deficit 12 minutes into the period but David Bentley's shot was parried away by Kuszczak. THe visitors were playing all the football, but couldn't get the breaks and Bentley again saw an effort go begging when he headed wide from a Gareth Bale cross. A flurry of late substitutions made no difference to the final outcome, and United will go through to the draw for the semi-finals happy with their night's work.
For visiting manager Redknapp it was a frustrating experience. "Strange match," the Spurs boss said. "There was hardly a tackle... There was no atmosphere in the stadium and no atmosphere in the game – it was a like a friendly, the pace was like a practice match. But they had two shots at goal and scored twice."
