Capital One Cup 2013/14

Sunderland deserved it, were brilliant from the hour mark onwards.

Just tap it in, give it an aul tap, tap tap-eroo

Oh well, it won't Mata in the morning.

*runs away and cries*

Better penalty than four of ours tonight.

Out of the four misses though, I can't believe Welbeck hit it miles over. He's a fucking striker ffs.

Hernandez isn't going to be at United next season I don't think. Except for his goal he was awful tonight, he's a poacher and offers nothing else.

Horrible first touch.

Hernandez has been linked with us a bit. I really, really don't want him.


Shocking pens.

His confidence is shot, as are all of theres.

Whatever Moyes is telling them it just isn't working.

Moyes has to take some of the blame I agree, but the players have a responsibility too, and tonight they should take most of the blame.

They can't even score from 12 yards, they couldn't pass, they couldn't run, they were useless tonight (and many other times this season).

Hernandez has had a bad season and he'll always be 3rd/4th in the pecking order. His first touch tonight was atrocious, he scored but he offered little else.

Put yourselves into the shoes of Nemanja Vidic, Patrice Evra, Michael Carrick and Rio Ferdinand for a second.

You're in the twilight of your career, you have been managed by and won everything there is to win (except the FA Cup in most of their cases) under the most successful football manager the world has ever seen. You have nothing left to prove and, to an extent, a tiny bit of your mind is going to be on what you're going to do after football.

Then your manager retires, his replacement whilst excellently referenced by said manager is not him. You turn up for training for the start of the season, you're probably still excited; you're a footballer, this is your dream job. Yet, something is different. Ferguson has gone, and this new manager, who can't compare to him, through no fault of his own, is telling you to do things differently. Why should you close down quicker? You never did under Ferguson and he won you the league. Why should you listen to the bloke who can hold three footballs in one arm? Ferguson never told you to do that, nor Phelan, nor Meulensteen. He's not changing much, you can still feel that Ferguson's ideas are running through the club, but its different. Your motivation is going, your manager's retired, maybe you should think about hanging up your boots too?

Now compare this to the position of our younger crop. You're David De Gea, Rafael, Adnan Januzaj and Danny Welbeck. Yeah, you may have won a Premier League medal or two, or three. But what have you proven? You've got your whole career ahead of you, your reputation to earn. Your career is just beginning. Now, Ferguson retires and this new bloke is telling you to do things differently. Who are you to argue? You are still learning, and you want, desperately, to play football. You listen, you learn, you play.

I think this is Moyes' biggest problem. He isn't Ferguson and he can't parrot him endlessly, thats no way to run a football club, but he is coming in to take over from the man that created the most relentlessly successful football juggernaught English football has seen. Any change he tries to make is bound to be met with the question 'why?' from the players that have experienced longest the management of Ferguson. I don't think it's a lack of professionalism, I just think it's an inevitable effect of the instability caused by the retirement of a man whose force of personality has ensured tremendous success.

LET CHRISTIE TAKE IT