Rams revived by Barnes stormer

Giles Barnes alerted prospective buyers that he’s back in business with a cool penalty and a stunning free kick as Derby pushed Manchester United all the way.

A Carling Cup Final place looked way out of the Rams’ reach as United rattled in three first half goals, but the introduction of Barnes injected life into the visitors who almost staged a remarkable comeback.

Derby eventually went out 4-3 on aggregate, and will gain confidence from their two performances against the Premier League champions – but they could lose Barnes in the process.

The young Rams’ midfielder was a top flight target before injury halted his impressive progress but, in a brief cameo at Old Trafford, he showed he’d lost none of his composure and class.

It was a professional performance from United’s essentially young side but the downside of reaching another domestic final was injuries to Anderson, Rafael and Jonny Evans.

"We have a few injuries so it's been bad in that respect but we're in the final and we should be celebrating," said United boss Sir Alex Ferguson.

Anderson was stretchered off at the final whistle after an innocuous looking challenge from Giles Barnes. "There is some damage. We are not exactly sure what but we will see what happens," said Ferguson.

The United boss added: "Evans has had a recurrence of ankle injury that he has been holding for a few weeks, but hopefully he'll be back next week. Rafael has a hamstring injury and he'll be out for a few weeks. There are probably six or seven of them who have picked up injuries," confirmed Ferguson. We finished with ten men. But it was effectively nine, because Jonny was in great discomfort."

Five of United’s side were 21 or under and Fergie strongly hinted he would keep faith with youth for the final – against either Burnley or Spurs - March 1.
"Finals are always hard to get in to and the young lads have done fantastically well to get there," he said. "It was a great performance and they (the youngsters) will all be playing in the final. The important thing is to find out what their temperament is and they have all proved that. Playing in big occasions in front of 75,000 is difficult and I'm proud of them."

Derby’s new boss Nigel Clough was keen to take the positives out of his side’s second half showing after looking dead and buried at half time. "If we'd got a second goal at home things could have been different," said Clough. "But the first goal knocked the stuffing out of us and the defending for the second and third goals was disappointing.

"We kept playing and plugging away, though, and we showed a lot of character afterwards. That's what I was looking for."

It was only Clough's second game in charge of his side after he oversaw a 2-0 league defeat by QPR and he added: "It was a vast improvement on Saturday - even the first half. United can beat anyone on their day by four, five or six so we have a lot of positives to take from this game.

"I asked them to defend a bit better and have a go and I thought we did that. We took the game to them as much as we could. We kept going, got the goal - and it was a little bit jittery for five or ten minutes."