can't sleep. nonsense beckons.....
CITY 2 : 1 RAGS
(Adebayor 54, Tevez 67) (Rooney 12)
Rooney missed 3 pen, Rooney sent off 44 minutes, Neville sent off 90+9 minutes.
Manchester City overcame the most bent ref in the history of football, to win a thrilling derby and take a huge step towards securing 4th place. United were undone despite being awarded four first half penalties, all of which were dubious in the extreme. First of all Kolo Toure was adjudged to have sneezed in the box on 12 minutes. Rooney blasted his penalty wide, but after consulting with Sir Alex Ferguson, the referee allowed the penalty to be taken again, as someone had moved in the crowd behind the goal. Then a second penalty was awarded after a foul by Carlos Tevez. City protested that the foul had clearly taken place in united's penalty area but the referee was unmoved. Shay Given saved. The third was awarded after Vincent Kompany said something that the ref couldn't quite make out, who had no choice but to assume it was foul and abusive language. Rooney took two air shots before skying at the third attempt. The fourth penalty was awarded for handball, after Johnson appeared to control the ball beautifully, the referee said that his feet where like other people's hands, therefore it was handball and a penalty. Rooney collapsed in the run up, barely touching the ball, and city cleared.
City then thought they had scored, but an audacious lob by Tevez was ruled out because some of that volcano stuff might have got in Van Der Sar's eyes.
They were denied a penalty when Rio Ferdinand punched Craig Bellamy, the referee apparently ruling that Bellamy had clearly asked for it by outpacing the Utd defender in the last league derby.
Wayne Rooney recieved several injections during the first half, and snorted some stuff with Rio, but he was clearly unfit. Utd almost substituted him on 20 minutes, but the england hero was given special dispensation to stay on the field and use Park as 'a runner'. In practise this meant United had 12 men on the pitch but as sky didn't say anything it never happened OK. Rooney was eventually sent off on 45 minutes, after dropping his shorts and rubbing his groin vigorously, allegedly to 'improve circulation'. as it took him 5 minutes to leave the pitch, the referee waved several city players off for half time, before restarting play, adding on a quarter of an hour of stoppage time, during which time he refused to allow the city players back onto the pitch.
The first ten minutes of the second half saw city cheat the ball into the back of the net 5 times, each of them ruled out for ungentlemanly conduct or some bollocks, before the referee got so excited by a daring run and clinical finish by adebayor that he forgot to disallow it. Ferguson started throwing things onto the pitch until the referee went across to him to find out what was wrong. Then the referee failed to rule out a wonderful volley by Tevez because he was busy recieving instructions from Fergie at the time. Utd didn't get out of their own half from there on. City were rampant but the ref evened things out by allowing the utd defenders to use their hands. Then in the nineteenth minute of stoppage time, Gary Neville was sent off for 'accidentally' repeatedly shoving over the referee whilst scholes bent over behind him. United will appeal the red card.