Carling Cup Results 21st September 2010 Part 2

Portsmouth 1-2 Leicester City
Portsmouth and Leicester took some time away from their League struggles with a match in the Carling Cup – and the knowledge that this time, someone definitely would win. Unfortunately for Portsmouth, it wasn’t them. Having a player sent off when they were 2-0 down probably didn’t help much.
Andy King was Leicester’s captain for the evening and got what proved to be the winning assist.

Stoke City 2-0 Fulham
Stoke are strong at home. Fulham struggle away. Although I thought there would only be one goal in it, a home win always looked like the probable result.
Ryan Shawcross played for Stoke and used his head – literally – to help prevent Fulham from equalising. But he did more to hinder than anything when he tried to help break up an argument. It’s good he tried though. Danny Collins was missing from the squad.
Simon Davies started for Fulham and could have equalised from a free kick.

Sunderland 1-2 West Ham United
It had to happen sooner or later, didn’t it. West Ham’s run of games without a win couldn’t go on for ever. Neither could their record of not having won away since August 2009. West Ham were very lucky that Burnley, Hull City and Portsmouth were all in the Premier League last season. Imagine if Hull had been relegated the season before instead.
West Ham defender Danny Gabbidon was rested. Jack Collison is recovering from his knee operation.

Tottenham Hotspur 1-4 Arsenal
Maybe we fans do know better than the players about some things. A number of fans last week were annoyed that Tomas Rosicky took Arsenal’s penalty against Sunderland, rather than Samir Nasri, who won it and was having a great game. This time, Samir took both penalties and scored them both, one on each side of the goalkeeper.
It was Tottenham’s not-quite-reserve side against Arsenal’s not-quite-youth team. The odds did not appear to be in Arsenal’s favour but as it happened, Tottenham fielded more debutants than Arsenal.
Gareth Bale was rested as Harry Redknapp was concerned one more game might kill him. Let’s hope he’s nice and rested for Bulgaria.
Aaron Ramsey is still out with a broken leg.

Wolverhampton Wanderers 4-2 Notts County
Some will be disappointed that the League One side were unable to overturn the Premier League side, despite taking them to extra time after normal time finished 1-1. But Brentford had already knocked out Everton. It wasn’t going to happen to any other top division sides… was it? Well, not in this match.
Wayne Hennessey was in goal for Wolves (so it was a good thing they weren’t knocked out really, Wales’ Number One needs confidence) and he didn’t only do his job defensively (even the apoplectic Mick McCarthy conceded that a save from Wayne had stopped the game from going to penalties), he also got the assist for Wolves’ third goal. David Jones was on the bench but Dave Edwards was out with an ankle injury.
Ben Davies played the full match for Notts County. He nearly got an assist in the second minute but the scorer was offside.