Carling Cup Final Preview 2010

Aston Villa v Manchester United
Tomorrow afternoon Man United have the opportunity to win the first ‘major’ trophy of the season, if we beat Aston Villa at Wembley. Villa have already taken four points out of a possible six this season against United.

Man United have never retained a cup competition before and tomorrow is a great opportunity to do that.
Man United and Aston Villa have played each other 173 times, out of those United have won 87 times, Villa 49 times and there have been 37 draws.

Aston Villa will have Stiliyan Petrov who has recovered from a virus. Emile Heskey and James Collins are also expected to start. Villa are without Marlon Harewood and Nigel Reo-Coker.

Man United’s in-form striker Wayne Rooney is expected to be rested by Sir Alex Ferguson, with possibly Michael Owen starting up front.

United will be without Luis Nani who is still suspended for one game. Rio Ferdinand is out with a back injury. Anderson, Ryan Giggs, John O’Shea and Owen Hargreaves are also out as well.

The referee for tomorrow is Phil Dowd, who has only refereed one game involving United this season, the 2-0 win over Blackburn at Old Trafford. Dowd has refereed three Aston Villa matches, the 0-0 draw at Sunderland, the 1-1 draw with Tottenham Hotspur and the 3-0 loss to Arsenal.

So far this season, Phil Dowd has refereed 28 matches, showing 95 yellow cards and four red cards.

Predicted Man United starting XI- Tomasz Kuszczak, Gary Neville, Nemanja Vidic, Jonny Evans, Fabio da Silva, Antonio Valencia, Darron Gibson, Darren Fletcher, Ji-Sung Park, Dimitar Berbatov and Michael Owen.

Predicted fulltime result- Aston Villa 1-2 Man United (in 90 minutes).

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