Carling Cup: Behind the scenes at the final
In order to commemorate the 50th League Cup final, the Football League have granted our award winning photographer Tom Jenkins exclusive and unprecedented behind the scence access to record the day’s events
Martin O’Neill rules out succeeding Alex Ferguson at Manchester United
• Aston Villa manager has ‘never thought’ about United role
• Says: ‘For anybody it would be absolutely an impossible job’
The Aston Villa manager, Martin O’Neill, has ruled out taking over as manager of today’s Carling Cup opponents, Manchester United, when Sir Alex Ferguson retires.
The Internazionale manager, José Mourinho, is favourite to replace the 68-year-old Scot when he stands down – but many believe O’Neill would be a good choice.
However, O’Neill said: “I’ve never thought about that at all, not for one second, not even way back when I was at Celtic.
“I think Sir Alex will decide, and I would think in about the year 2033 when he thinks to himself, ‘Yeah, I think that Champions League has gone past me for the final time’, then I will have departed this earth long before him – because I’ve got a lot more worries.
“It’s never really bothered me. And of course there’s always somebody coming up, somebody whose name is relevant at the time.”
O’Neill, who will be 58 tomorrow, added: “For anybody it would be absolutely an impossible job to succeed [Ferguson]. What can you do? Win the Premier League 10 times? You’d still be just starting out against him.
“I know Brian Clough went to Leeds and said he could win it better but he only lasted 44 days and to be honest it wasn’t his most inspiring moment.”
Aston Villa’s James Milner: a future England captain
James Milner has no agent, doesn’t drink and trains harder than anyone – no wonder the Aston Villa midfielder is being talked of as a future leader of his country
Monday mornings in the staff room at Horsforth school in Leeds invariably involve animated analysis of an old boy’s latest weekend television appearance.
“We love talking about James Milner,” Steven Weeks, the head of maths, says. “Everybody’s thrilled by his achievements with Aston Villa and England; some of my colleagues have even kept bits of his old work.”
It is nearly eight years since Milner swapped the classroom for the local football team where, almost immediately, Terry Venables catapulted the 16-year-old into the Leeds United first team – the manager later described it as a rare high point of his spell at Elland Road. At the time Milner’s father, Peter, a quantity surveyor, and his mother, Lesley, an estate agent, feared the boy might be wasting 11 GCSEs while Weeks lamented the loss of one of Horsforth’s brighter mathematical brains. “I’d have loved James to stay on and do A level, he was extremely able,” he says. “But I accept his football taking him a little further than maths might have done.”
Indeed Milner’s mastery of the game’s most intricately advanced geometry promises to carry the versatile Villa midfielder to South Africa for this summer’s World Cup finals. Fabio Capello is not known for adopting favourites but all the indications are that a 24-year-old whose immaculate middle-class manners conceal a zealous inner drive is the Italian’s star pupil.
The first clue arrived in December 2008, eight months before he won his first senior cap in a friendly against Holland. “The player I like is Milner,” Capello said. “He is the future, my future.” Milner has another chance to impress Capello in today’s Carling Cup final, and can expect to be back on the Wembley pitch for Wednesday’s international against Egypt. He has featured in the past six England matches.
Weeks is not surprised Milner is doing so well. “James is still exactly the same really nice, calm, quiet, totally unassuming, popular lad he was at school but I always thought that, inside, he had the sort of controlled aggression that takes people to the very top.”
Significantly, England’s approving coach deflected some of the rather sordid unpleasantness surrounding John Terry’s loss of the national captaincy by offering journalists an ode to a genuine role model. “Milner is a fantastic player,” Capello said. “He has improved more than any other player in the squad. He is intelligent on the pitch, can make good passes, assists for goals and score himself.”
He can also play a variety of roles, a point emphasised by Martin O’Neill after Milner’s man-of-the-match performance in Villa’s 3-0 win over Hull in December. He set up Villa’s first goal with a sublime pass to Richard Dunne, then scored the second with a delightful lob. Afterwards O’Neill reminded Capello that the versatile Milner was outstanding in several positions and was just what England need in South Africa. The two-footed prodigy can not only operate in central midfield, on both wings and behind a main striker, but as a full-back. It has even been suggested that, in the wake of Ashley Cole’s broken ankle, Milner might yet make a World Cup left-back.
If that seems a waste of the former England Under-21 winger’s attacking gifts, all-rounders rarely come more spherical. As good at arts as sciences at school, he also excelled in cross country running, 100m sprints and cricket.
“James’s really is Mr Perfect, he’s an A-star person,” says Glenn Roeder, one of his managers during a turbulent spell at Newcastle where, tellingly, Milner ignored an 11-year age gap to strike up a friendship with the goalkeeper Steve Harper, a former Open University student.
“He said ‘no thanks’ to Newcastle’s brat pack,” Roeder recalls. “James can seem a goody two shoes but he deserves every bit of success going. Unlike the vast majority of professional footballers he works to his maximum and extracts every last ounce of ability.
“Most professional footballers, England internationals included, know they could have worked harder and been better but not James. Frank Lampard is the only other player I’ve managed who does as much extra training.”
During Milner’s Tyneside days he frequently crossed paths with Jonny Wilkinson. The England rugby union star, then with Newcastle Falcons, used to borrow United’s indoor training facility and, sometimes watched admiringly by the young winger, would spend hours fine-tuning his kicking.
At first glance the similarities between the pair are striking. Milner seems touched with the young Wilkinson’s obsessive perfectionism and almost romantic idealism about his chosen path. He grew up dreaming of playing in a World Cup finals and regards remaining strictly teetotal while spending numerous early nights watching DVDs of Friends as a worthwhile sacrifice at glory’s altar.
Typically, when Peter Taylor managed Milner at England Under-21 level his principal problem was dragging him out of the gym. “James would be in there all hours,” Taylor says. “I’d tell the fitness coach, ‘He’ll be too exhausted to play’.”
While other Under-21s compared designer watches, Milner regularly toiled alone on the training field. “I couldn’t find a vice,” says Taylor, who gave him many of his record 46 under-21 caps. “The only area where he may have defied me was when I’d tell him to just work with light weights in the gym but I’m pretty sure he used the heavy ones.”
Back at the Sutton Coldfield home he shares with his girlfriend, Milner’s existence is not, however, quite as reclusive as Wilkinson’s once was and definitely encompasses more of a hinterland. “I do leave my house and go out sometimes,” he says. “I like a round of golf, and a quiet Italian or Chinese meal out.” Milner was recently photographed looking slightly out of place during a rare post-midnight visit to London’s Whisky Mist nightclub on a team jolly.
“You can paint parallels with Jonny Wilkinson but they aren’t quite right,” says Mick McGuire, Milner’s long-standing friend and former representative. “James is not your standard young lad and he is a perfectionist in training but, off the field, he’s nowhere near as fanatical or meticulous about things. Where James is different from a lot of footballers is that, although he understands the importance of money, he’s not that interested in developing commercial opportunities. He doesn’t want to be distracted from playing.”
Milner is also extraordinarily loyal. Despite an enduring closeness to McGuire, when the Professional Footballers’ Association’s former deputy chief executive left the players’ union last year – amid considerable acrimony – he felt it would somehow be “not right” to drop the PFA as his representatives in order to follow a key mentor.
“James was always a bit unusual,” explains Eddie Gray, who coached him at Leeds. “His background was slightly different to a lot of players and he never got distracted by the usual temptations. He always loved the game more than anything that went with it. Even as a teenager James knew he was very fortunate to have natural talent.”
Like Weeks, Gray noted Milner’s “inner hunger” and laughed off suggestions he was too nice, or too middle-class. “James will always listen but he’s a strong character who knows his own mind,” he says. “His one aim in life has always been to be the best footballer he can. His right foot was initially stronger but he just worked hard on his left and made himself two-footed.
“Apart from being naturally talented, he was also very tough. He’s extremely brave, he’d constantly throw himself into challenges and he could run for ever. Knowing James, he won’t just be content with being in England’s World Cup squad, he’ll want to shake things up and get in the first XI. He’s got great self-belief.”
It all seems light years since Graeme Souness – one of his 11 club managers – sneeringly opined that Newcastle would “not win anything with a team of James Milners”. The Scot underestimated a startling capacity for self-improvement. “James is my all-time favourite Under-21,” Taylor says. “Blimey, if all players were like him the job would be pure joy. Coaching James was a pleasure but, at first, there was a problem with his end product, his crossing wasn’t quite right.
“Unlike a lot of players, though, James really listened to advice and acted on it – he was a very serious boy, old for his age. His crossing improved immensely but I moved him to central midfield, albeit in a 4-3-3 formation where he could hurt teams with his excellent passing range and shooting.”
McGuire suspects the centre will prove his best position. “People have consistently written James off, they’ve said he wasn’t quick enough to go past people and his final ball wasn’t good enough but he’s kept proving them wrong,” he says.
“In central midfield he’s spotting openings people thought he didn’t have the vision to see but a lot of his development in the last year or so has been down to playing for Martin O’Neill at Aston Villa. A few clubs were interested in James but I was desperate to get him into Villa, I knew Martin would give him extraordinary confidence.”
Recent comments from O’Neill confirm McGuire’s hunch has paid off. In spades. “James is getting into little areas outside the box and giving us passes which weren’t part of our game – or his – a year ago,” Villa’s manager said. “James is a character and a half who has grown greatly in confidence with the ball since arriving here. He’s moved his game on to a new level. He’s seeing the pass now and moving into better positions.
“James could play in central midfield for England – absolutely. Playing there for us in the Premier League you’d think he owned the place.”
Certainly if Milner, whose goals tend to be of the spectacular variety, does not yet make late Lampard-esque dashes into the box before scoring from 10 yards, he has thoroughly eclipsed Villa’s previously much vaunted Ashley Young.
The only regret is that he joined in 2008 rather than in 2006 when, thinking he was on the brink of signing for O’Neill the then winger drove to Birmingham only to be turned back at the gates of Villa’s training ground after Mark Viduka’s mooted move to St James’ Park collapsed.
“It was Freddy Shepherd’s [Newcastle's then chairman] decision to sell him, I always wanted to keep James but I don’t think he believed me,” Roeder recalls. “A lot of players would have mentally gone under in similar circumstances but he simply got on with it.”
Such deceptively understated determination forms a recurring theme. “We sometimes see James when he visits his family,” Weeks says. “He’ll go down to the local park and watch the kids enjoy a kickabout, then he’ll have keepy-uppy contests with them.”
The resultant image is of a young man still deeply in love with football, reassuringly nice – and, above all, achingly competitive. “I’ve told James he’ll end up as England captain,” McGuire says. “He just laughs at me but I’m convinced it will happen.”
Dwight Yorke: I’m ready for management
He has finally hung up his boots aged 38, and football’s notorious playboy has another target in mind
It is 11am on a sodden day in central London and as he steps into a cosy room located at the rear of the opulent Haymarket Hotel, Dwight Yorke looks tired but content. Dressed in loose-fitting jeans and an even looser shirt, a gleaming chain dangling from his neck and a large baseball cap shadowing his face, the former Manchester United forward falls on to a sofa and explains where he has been.
“I’ve just flown back from the Trinidad Carnival,” he says. “It was wicked, thousands of people on the streets, half-naked women everywhere, and Beyonce singing. Let’s just say I ain’t slept much the past couple of days.”
Yorke is a walking, talking trick of the mind. To be in his company is to question if the past 11 years even took place. It is that long since he helped United secure an unprecedented treble and yet he appears exactly the same. He is as slim now as he was in May 1999, his face, when uncovered, shows little sign of age, and then, of course, there is the playboy lifestyle.
Read Dwight Yorke’s Carling Cup final preview
Aged 38, does Yorke think now may be the time finally to settle down and get married? “No fucking chance,” he responds, before flashing that trademark ice-white smile.
Mischief is in the air but Yorke is also at pains to insist he has grown up. It is eight months since he retired from football and there is a new focus. “I’m doing my coaching badges at the moment with the aim of becoming a manager,” he says. “I’ve been considering it ever since my spell at Sunderland [Yorke briefly worked as an assistant to Ricky Sbragia at the club, the last of his career, following the departure of Roy Keane as manager in December 2008]. I have an idea of how to do it, and having been involved in the game for 22 years, I definitely have a lot of experience. I’ve seen a lot change, a lot.”
The biggest change as far as Yorke is concerned is one that will have his critics screaming “hypocrite”. According to the man who filled his autobiography, Born to Score, with tales of how he used to sneak women into his hotel room on the eve of games, not to mention stories about his relationship with a certain ample-chested model, modern players are too flash.
“In my time you had to be the main man year after year to be able to demand respect at your club, but now it’s too easy because of the financial rewards on offer,” he says. “Everybody can go out and buy fancy things and, while I don’t have a problem with that, I do think players should earn the right to say ‘I deserve this big contract and all this money’.
“Yes, I’ve done a lot of things in life, but I’ve also achieved a lot, I’ve won trophies. When I was at Sunderland I looked through the dressing room and thought ‘who’s won anything substantial here?’. Nobody had and yet they all had a flashy car and an opinion.”
Yorke has no obvious solutions to such shifts in dressing-room culture but could always seek advice from the man who ultimately defined his career. Sir Alex Ferguson turfed Yorke out of United just four seasons after bringing him to the club, a reaction to his increasingly wild antics, but, the player insists, there is no lingering bitterness.
“I’ve been back to United numerous times since I left and things between me and Fergie are fine,” he says. “I’m even thinking of doing my coaching badges there. The truth is I was never wary about my relationship with Fergie because he has always been good to me. I remember when I left United he called me into his room and said, ‘Things haven’t worked out for you here but what you have done for this club will never be forgotten’. That was phenomenal given what happened.”
Yorke went from scoring 26 goals and winning three major honours in his debut season at United to four goals and nothing in his final year there prior to being sold to Blackburn Rovers. Ferguson tried his best to rein in the player, even demanding that he get married, but there was no getting through and in July 2002 it was decided Yorke could go.
“In hindsight I could have done things differently,” concedes Yorke, who spent three seasons at Ewood Park before playing for Birmingham City, FC Sydney and Sunderland. “But would I give up the women and nights out for another year at United? Would that make me happy? Would that make me the person I am today? I’m not sure. I have no regrets. I went to United to win things and I achieved that.”
Yorke’s fondness for United is obvious and is only matched by his love for the club that sold him to Old Trafford in the first place. Aston Villa brought the then 17-year-old Tobagan to England in 1989 and during eight seasons at the club he scored 73 goals in 232 appearances, won the 1996 Coca-Cola Cup and became an integral part of the side. Indeed, such was the sense of loss felt at Villa when Yorke moved to United in August 1998, the club’s then manager, John Gregory, said he could have “shot” the player for leaving.
A reminder of the threat does not rile Yorke, who scored 15 times in 52 appearances for his country, and instead he reflects on his time in the Midlands with satisfaction. Indeed, he rushed back to the country to watch them face United in tomorrow’s Carling Cup final and while refusing to pick a winner from his former clubs, it is obvious who Yorke hopes will prevail: “It’s 14 years since they [Villa] last won a trophy and that’s far too long. I’m on the fence but if United don’t win, I won’t feel bad.”
Talk of his first English club brings Yorke back to his managerial ambitions. “I’d like the Villa job for sure,” he says. “I think that’s a realistic target for a young ambitious manager like myself.” Given his past, though, does Yorke believe any chairman would be brave enough to appoint him? “I don’t see why not,” he replies. “I’ve got a reputation but everybody’s got a reputation. You should be judged on what you’ve done in football and there’s not a lot of people who have a CV like mine.
“Ideally I’ll get a chance in the Championship. People say I should go somewhere like Lincoln, like [Chris] Sutton did, but I don’t want to be struggling down there. If Roy Keane can start in the Championship, why can’t I?”
The reference to Keane, who Yorke fell out with spectacularly during their time together at Sunderland, makes United the centre of focus once more. That smile shines again as Yorke remembers how Ferguson once gave him the “biggest bollocking” of his life and even blamed him for turning his hair grey.
If he does become a manager, would Yorke ever tell one of his own players to settle down and get married? “No way!” he chuckles. “They can talk to me about anything but I wouldn’t tell anyone to get married. I’d say get two or three women instead!”
Dwight Yorke is a studio expert for Sky Sports’ live and high definition coverage of the Carling Cup final on Sunday — the first of nine live finals on Sky Sports this season
Martin O’Neill ridicules Arsène Wenger’s dismissal of League Cup
• Martin O’Neill accuses Arsenal manager of hypocrisy
• Aston Villa manager taunts rival over 2006 Wigan loss
Martin O’Neill has reignited his feud with Arsène Wenger by strongly disputing the Arsenal manager’s claim that winning the League Cup does not qualify as a trophy and accusing the Frenchman of hypocrisy.
The Villa manager, who has lifted the League Cup twice as a player with Nottingham Forest and twice as a manager with Leicester City, reminded Wenger that four years ago he was so desperate to win the trophy that he picked his strongest available side for the semi-final second leg against Wigan Athletic, when Thierry Henry made his first appearance in the competition in more than six years alongside a host of other stellar names.
O’Neill suggested Wenger had conveniently forgotten about his approach to the Wigan match when he recently disputed the significance of tomorrow’s Carling Cup final between Manchester United and Aston Villa at Wembley. The Arsenal manager said: “It’s very important that we win something, we’re here to win trophies, but it depends on what you call trophies. Is it the Champions League, the Premier League, the League Cup? If you win the League Cup you cannot say you win trophies, for me.”
Wenger’s comments, coming on the back of his criticism of Villa’s style of play last month, have further antagonised O’Neill and prompted the Northern Irishman to issue a robust defence of the League Cup on the eve of the final. O’Neill pointed to the titanic battle between Manchester United and Manchester City in the semi-final this season, as well as Chelsea’s decision to “treat the competition with the utmost respect”, as evidence that Wenger is alone in believing that the League Cup has no status in English football.
“I think that if you had seen or experienced any of the two semi-final matches from Manchester City and Manchester United, if somebody had said to any of those two football clubs that this trophy is not a trophy, then I think you would have got short shrift,” said the Villa manager before recalling Wenger’s selection policy for the tie with Wigan in 2006, which Arsenal lost on away goals.
“I know that the Arsenal manager has been pretty scathing all the time in the League Cup. It would be interesting to see the team that he played against Wigan Athletic in the semi-final [second leg] of the competition. I don’t know it off hand but I would have said that it was very, very strong. So when it suits, then it’s a great competition. And when it doesn’t suit you, then it’s not. That’s not my view. It’s an important competition.
“Manchester United, I’m quite sure, will field as strong a side as they possibly can on Sunday so I think with all their games that they have – they’re contesting the Premier League, they’re in the Champions League again – and they will be treating this game with the utmost respect. Now if Manchester United and Chelsea can treat this competition with the utmost respect then that would really be enough for me.”
The Carling Cup has grown up and is putting big brother in the shade
In its latest guise the League Cup has acquired some stature and is no longer the FA Cup’s poor relation
Time was when the League Cup final, while it might hold the attention of the teams and supporters involved, was rarely spared more than a passing glance by the football public at large. At best it was a reminder that spring was on the way. Far more important issues at home and abroad remained. The FA Cup final would always be the season’s showpiece.
Times change. In its latest guise as the Carling Cup, the poor relation has acquired some stature. Tomorrow’s final between Aston Villa and Manchester United promises Wembley an encounter that the FA Cup final on 15 May may be hard-pressed to emulate. When the teams met in the 1994 Coca-Cola Cup final Ron Atkinson’s Villa won against the odds, beating United, who were set to retain their Premier League title, 3-1, Dean Saunders scoring twice. And Martin O’Neill’s Villa have already taken four points off Alex Ferguson’s side in the league this season.
Whoever wins, and whatever the quality of the match, the Carling Cup final has gained in prominence because it is played at a time of the season when the game welcomes a diversion from the league treadmill. The FA Cup final, on the other hand, finds itself competing for attention with the climax of the Champions League, in which there is often a Premier League presence, and will be taking place this year when English thoughts are preoccupied with the World Cup.
In any case, football could do with a cracking final just now, something positive amid all the negatives. The perils of prodigal Portsmouth, the life and times of Mr and Mrs Ashley Cole, Rio Ferdinand’s back – the game is in danger of wearing a look of endless crisis. People used to watch football to escape from their daily problems. Now they are getting the recession with a choice of ends.
The appeal of cup football is not what it was. With a few exceptions FA Cup attendances are down – the Football Association is considering switching ties to midweek – while League Cup gates are high only in exceptional circumstances, such as the recent meetings of the Manchesters, City and United, in a semi-final. The success of the Premier and Champions Leagues has much to do with the declining appeal of the FA Cup but there is something else.
After Hillsborough the game’s oldest competition lost something of its dramatic effect. Replays could no longer take place within three or four days, when memories of the original games were still fresh, but had to wait until the following week because additional security demanded a greater police presence, with the problem of overtime costs for matches arranged at short notice. As a result, ties were rationed to one replay; after that they had to be settled by penalties.
For those who remembered the great cup sagas this seemed to be cheap expedient. In the present climate, however, it is tempting to believe the Carling Cup got it right in cutting out replays altogether and going straight to shoot-outs. Surely Bolton would rather have got their FA Cup fifth-round tie against Tottenham out of the way at the Reebok instead of having to suffer a walloping at White Hart Lane on Wednesday ahead of today’s critical relegation encounter with Wolves.
The FA Cup has already dispensed with replays in the semi-finals and final. Why not go the whole hog and scrap the lot? True, lower division clubs would miss a few financial opportunities but it is hard to deny that the Carling Cup is a sleeker, slicker tournament without teams having to meet again. By the time Alvechurch beat Oxford City 1-0 at the sixth attempt in the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup in 1971-72 did anyone care who won?
The Football League Cup came of age when the final, previously played over two legs, moved to Wembley in 1967 and saw Rodney Marsh inspire Queen’s Park Rangers, then in the Third Division, to a famous victory over West Bromwich Albion, then in the old First. There have been some stinkers since – witness the tedium of Aston Villa’s goalless grind against Everton in 1977, which took two replays to settle in Villa’s favour.
Last year’s final, won on penalties by Manchester United after they had shared two scoreless hours with Tottenham, was no great shakes but it is hard to believe that tomorrow will not see something more remarkable. Like Emile Heskey getting the winner!
Ashley Young regains best form to lift Aston Villa’s Carling Cup quest
Ashley Young says he has added a new dimension to the fast, direct approach that makes him such a potent weapon against Manchester United
Ashley Young breaks into laughter as he listens to a few comments from Peter McParland about him in tomorrow’s Carling Cup final programme. “I like Ashley when he plays a straightforward game,” says the former Aston Villa winger, who scored twice against Manchester United in the 1957 FA Cup final and also grabbed the winner in the inaugural League Cup final four years later. “Sometimes he annoys me when he mucks about – get on with it, you can skin these guys.”
It is probably the closest anyone connected with Aston Villa has come to saying anything negative about Young during the past two years and even then the criticism is laced with a compliment. Young is still grinning as he politely points out he has not been “mucking about” on the wing this season, although he also acknowledges that one of the reasons he has looked so impressive in recent weeks is that he has adopted a more direct approach.
Gaël Clichy discovered as much last month when, in the words of the Villa manager, Martin O’Neill, the Arsenal defender was “taken to the cleaners” by Young. Since then the 24-year-old has looked like the winger who won the PFA young player of the year award last season, with his return to what he describes as his “best form” coming as Villa prepare to take on Manchester United at Wembley tomorrow in their biggest match for a decade and Fabio Capello ponders his latest England squad.
“I think there’s been a lot said about the way that I’ve played this season and how I’ve not been at the same standard as last season,” says Young. “But I go out there to do well for the club, and the manager has always had faith in me to put me in the team. And I think if you look at my displays over the last couple of months, I’ve been delighted and the manager has been delighted and that’s all that matters.”
Sir Alex Ferguson once talked about Ryan Giggs giving defenders “twisted blood” and when Young is at his exhilarating best, as he was in front of Capello’s assistant, Franco Baldini, against Burnley last weekend, he has a similar effect on opponents. For much of this season, however, he has been a marked man and he admits it has taken a subtle change in his play to allow him to break free from the shackles and make the penetrative runs on the flank that open up defences.
“I think [recently] I have been a lot more direct when I’ve got the ball,” says Young. “That’s my game, being direct and going at players. But there are obviously times where things became difficult and you have to work out a different strategy to break someone down. At times this season teams have doubled up or even tripled up. I can remember Portsmouth at home and coming in at half-time and the manager saying that I had three players around me.”
Manchester United will no doubt be paying close attention to Young on an afternoon when Villa will need their most influential players to be on form if they are to get their hands on a first trophy in 14 years. Young was still attending primary school when Brian Little and his players were celebrating Villa’s 1996 League Cup triumph over Leeds United but he had already decided back then that being a professional footballer was the only career that he wanted to pursue.
Riches have followed. From the diamond ear-stud to the designer watch and the brand new Porsche, the monetary rewards are there for all to see but it is days like tomorrow, when more than 30 of his family and friends will be at Wembley to see the most important club game of his career, that provide Young with the greatest motivation. “I’ll relish playing at Wembley in a major cup final,” he says. “It’s a great achievement for me and it’s why I became a footballer, because I want to win medals.”
There could be another chance of silverware in the FA Cup, where Villa take on Reading next weekend for a place in the semi-finals, and there is also the pursuit of a top-four finish in the Premier League. Throw in the prospect of travelling to South Africa in the summer as part of Capello’s England party – something that five of his Villa colleagues are also targeting – and it is easy to see why Young sounds so excited about the next few months.
“I’ve been on best form for the last few weeks and if I can continue that until the end of the season then, fingers crossed, I do get on the plane to South Africa. But there are important things to take care of at Aston Villa at the moment. We’ve got a big game tomorrow, we’ve got the quarter-final of the FA Cup to look forward to and we’ve got the league as well. But hopefully I can keep my form going.”
He will certainly not struggle for opportunities. Young has started 35 of Villa’s 37 matches this season, more than any other player, and he admits that O’Neill is wasting his time whenever he talks to him about watching a game from the sidelines and taking a breather. “There have been times when the manager has rested players here and I’ve been asked if I want to have a rest. But I don’t want to. I want to play every game.”
Hugging the left touchline is where he is happiest and no more so than when a drop of the shoulder has put the right-back on the seat of his pants. “It’s a great feeling when you know that you’ve got the beating of your man and you’re playing in a game where it feels like everything you do is coming off,” says Young. “Burnley was one of those games when I was just smiling throughout because things were going really well.”
United will know they are in trouble if the grin is back on his face tomorrow. Young and his Villa team-mates cannot wait. “It has been a long while since we have won something but Villa is a massive club and it belongs in finals like this,” he says. “We do want to change that part of the history that we haven’t won anything since 1996. As players we want to write ourselves into the history books and bring some silverware and now we’ve got the opportunity.”
Squad sheets: Aston Villa v Manchester United
Sir Alex Ferguson mused that the Carling Cup final might be a good moment to rest Wayne Rooney. He may well have been teasing and Martin O’Neill, his opposite number at Aston Villa, would never believe a word of it. Both managers are in earnest about any available trophy and Manchester United will be wary of a side that has won at Old Trafford this season. Villa are not known as prolific scorers and much will depend on the harm they can do to Ferguson’s defence, which has rarely seemed at full strength in this campaign. Kevin McCarra
Venue Wembley Stadium
Tickets Sold out
Last season n/a
Referee P Dowd
This season’s league matches 22 Y69, R4, 3.32 cards per game
Odds Aston Villa 15-4 Man Utd 13-15 Draw 13-5
Aston Villa
Subs from Guzan, L Young, Sidwell, Delfouneso, Davies, Delph, Carew, Beye, Clark, Albrighton, Lowry
Doubtful None
Injured Harewood (foot, May), Reo-Coker (foot, May), Bouma (ankle, unknown)
Suspended None
Form guide (all competitions) WWDDDW
Disciplinary record (all competitions) Y55 R2
Leading scorer (all competitions) Agbonlahor 14
Manchester United
Subs from Kuszczak, Van der Sar, Brown, Neville, Carrick, Scholes, Berbatov, Obertan, Macheda, Diouf, Fabio, De Laet
Doubtful None
Injured Ferdinand (back, 10 Mar), Giggs (arm, 14 Mar), O’Shea (thigh, May), Anderson (knee, Sep), Hargreaves (knee, unknown)
Suspended Nani (last of three)
Form guide (all competitions) WLWDWW
Disciplinary record (all competitions) Y54 R5
Leading scorer (all competitions) Rooney 27
Match pointers
• Manchester United have lost one of their last 26 meetings with Aston Villa in all competitions
• Only Liverpool (seven times) have won this trophy more often than Villa, who have triumphed on five occasions as well as being runners-up twice
• No side has been runner-up in the League Cup more often than United (four times)
• If Villa win it will be their 50th all-time victory over United in all competitions
• United have played at the new Wembley six times and have yet to win without the aid of a penalty shoot-out
Louise Taylor: Why the League Cup is fabulous at 50
Memorable matches and affordable tickets have given the competition a new lease of life upon its half-century
It’s better on the BBC
For the first time the BBC got its hands on Carling Cup coverage – albeit sharing with Sky – and duly proved it does live, domestic football better than ITV. Quite apart from the welcome lack of ad-breaks, the BBC treats viewers a bit more like grown-ups, letting the pictures do a lot of the work. This allows viewers to make up their own minds about things rather than the editors coming over all tabloid, applying topspin to every conceivable minor controversy and analysing things to death. Similarly the wonderfully low-key Mark Lawrenson is so much more soothing to listen to than Sky’s over-exciteable Andy Gray. Sometimes less really is more.
It’s all about the timing
Sunday’s final catches Manchester United before they become totally engrossed in chasing the title and the Champions League and Aston Villa while Martin O’Neill can still think about something else apart from finishing in the top four. At a time when FA Cup replays are giving participants battle fatigue and fans hypothermia, the Carling Cup is reaching a timely climax. Just as players still high on early-season adrenalin waltzed through the early, replay-free rounds, supporters appreciated watching the bulk of the ties in milder autumn weather. Psychologically, the chance to win a trophy so early in the season is a significant morale booster.
It introduces new heroes
Step forward Brad Guzan. The Villa reserve goalkeeper may have been put back in his box now but Gabby, James, Emile, Ashley and co would not be visiting Wembley on Sunday but for the American. We are talking the Carling Cup fourth-round stage and the night of 27 October 2009. Guzan saved four penalties in the course of one match at Sunderland. After repelling one in normal time, he proceeded to shatter the Stadium of Light by saving three more in the shoot-out.
It places fallen idols on the road to redemption
On 26 August last year, the Tottenham Hotspur winger David Bentley, having been arrested for drink driving and already far from being Harry Redknapp’s favourite player, was given a Carling Cup run-out at Doncaster. Quite apart from scoring in a 5-1 rout, Bentley shone throughout, quite possibly persuading Redknapp not to sell him in the remaining days before the transfer window slammed shut. Granted, Spurs did not make the final, but Bentley is slowly reminding everyone why he was supposed to be the apparent heir to David Beckham. If he ever plays for England again, this DB might cite a balmy night in Doncaster as an epiphany.
It annoys Arsène Wenger
The Arsenal manager’s full-on sour grapes mode is always amusing and the Carling Cup brought the worst out of him this season. Take this particular utterance from earlier this month: “If you win the League Cup you cannot, for me, say you win trophies.” Wenger’s views might have been different if his youngsters had made the final rather than bowing out to Manchester City on a night when he churlishly refused to shake Mark Hughes’s hand.
It puts fans first
A recent Guardian survey has highlighted that there have frequently been more vacant seats at English grounds on FA Cup rather than Carling Cup dates this season. The reasons are complex and legion but includes clubs’ decisions to offer sizeable concessions during the early rounds of the latter, particularly for children and pensioners. Whereas too many FA Cup final tickets end up going to neutrals via county association allocations, the Carling Cup portrays itself as “the fans’ final” and cleverly markets itself accordingly. While hats, flags, scarves, pennants and banners are routinely handed out outside Wembley, Carling have also invited fans to engage in a competition to adorn the national stadium’s electronic pitchside advertising boards with their own personalised messages of support.
It produced superb semi-finals
Even the most optimistic executive at Carling, the Football League and the BBC would not have dared hope that one semi-final would throw up a Manchester derby or that the other would produce a 10-goal thriller. That, though, is what occurred with plenty more besides.
The FA Cup is attracting the wrong sort of romance
While Aston Villa verses Manchester United is richly textured with multiple subplots, the FA has, whisper it, attracted the wrong sort of romance in recent years. Take 2008 when Portsmouth beat Cardiff in the final and Barnsley and West Bromwich also made the semis. Quite apart from dwelling on what “living the dream” has done to poor Portsmouth, it was all rather dull. If the FA Cup is to undergo a renaissance it needs to find the modern heirs to Bob Stokoe’s Sunderland side which overcame Don Revie’s Leeds in 1973.
Steve McClaren is fashionable again
The League Cup was recently tainted by its, admittedly indirect, role in making Steve McClaren England manager in 2006 – his feat in winning the trophy with Middlesbrough in 2004 was a key factor in the Football Association’s decision-making process. Now, though, McClaren has reinvented himself from failed England coach to Dutch footballing genius. His FC Twente are flying high in Holland and Premier League clubs might yet be fighting among themselves for his services in the summer.
This might be Sir Alex Ferguson’s Wembley swansong
With the Manchester United manager’s latest retirement date a closely guarded secret, this might just be his last match at Wembley and United’s last final of the Scot’s illustrious era.
Stephen Warnock hopes World Cup door opened by Wayne Bridge exit
• Aston Villa left-back in line for second cap against Egypt
• Warnock more of a ‘warrior’ than attacker, says Martin O’Neill
Stephen Warnock said last night that Wayne Bridge’s decision to make himself unavailable for the World Cup following the revelations about John Terry’s affair with his former partner has “opened a door” that Warnock hopes will lead to him being named in the England squad for South Africa.
The Aston Villa left-back was already presenting a strong case to be recognised as Ashley Cole’s understudy this summer before the allegations about Terry’s private life surfaced last month. His impressive performances since moving to Villa from Blackburn Rovers in a £7m deal in August caught Fabio Capello’s eye earlier in the season and the former Liverpool trainee was rewarded with a call-up to the England squad for the friendly against Brazil in November.
Warnock remained on the substitutes’ bench in Doha but, provided he comes through Sunday’s Carling Cup final against Manchester United unscathed, he seems certain to win his second senior cap against Egypt at Wembley on Wednesday. Cole is sidelined by a fractured ankle.
“I was pushing for a World Cup place anyway. I always thought that if my form was good enough I could push Wayne Bridge hard and I’d be happy with that,” said Warnock. “With the events that have unfolded, possibly it opens a door and you never know what could happen. It’s the manager’s decision who he picks and who he thinks is right for the job. All I can do is concentrate on my form for Aston Villa and hopefully that will impress the England manager.”
Warnock admitted it would be the ideal scenario if he received a Carling Cup winners’ medal as well as an England call-up, but he was reluctant to discuss the circumstances that have conspired to push him a step closer to the World Cup finals. “It would have been a difficult decision for Wayne Bridge,” he said. “But you don’t know what’s gone on and it’s not for me to comment on that, it would be wrong.”
Earlier in the month Warnock was struggling to recover from a shin problem. He had broken the same leg three times as a teenager, and Villa were concerned that the discomfort he was feeling was associated with the site of the original fracture. But he returned to the first team in the FA Cup tie at Crystal Palace 12 days ago and has reported no ill-effects since.
“He was very concerned a couple of weeks ago with that injury,” said Martin O’Neill, the Villa manager. “It looked as if he might even miss the rest of the season; the player was obviously very down. We gave him a couple of weeks’ rest and, touch wood, it seems to have helped enormously. He’s been exceptional since he arrived. And now with Bridge pulling out, Warnock would have a chance as good as anyone of travelling on that plane.”
O’Neill said Warnock is a different type of full-back to Cole. “Ashley Cole is a very, very fine player. When he plays for Chelsea he makes these runs because he has players capable of delivering and playing him in. So he really is the quintessential attacking full-back. I think Stephen, going forward, is improving. He’s a real warrior. He tries to contest everything. For the size of him, he’s brave in the air. And I think those would be qualities that would be endearing to the England manager.”