With Rooney in the stands serving serving a two match ban for his foul mouthed tirade, cross-town rivals capitalize on a Michael Carrick mistake and pick up a 1-nil win – bumping United out of the FA Cup and ending all hope of repeating their famous treble win.

Early in the match Berbatov had two great chances to put the Red Devils on top, however both were squandered. The first came from a perfect ball from Park through to Berbatov who found himself one on one with the keeper about eight yards out, but Joe Hart proved equal to the task by getting off his line early and making the save. The second came just seconds after – on a throw in Nani slides the ball across the six yard box and an onrushing Berbatov finds some way to miss from about 3 yards out. That certainly should have been the opening goal, but Dimi opted for a sliding finish versus a strong one-time strike.

The wheels came off for United in the 52nd minute. A poorly conceived back pass from Ferdinand to Van der Sar sees the keeper rush his clearance, which only makes it just past the 18 yard box, deflects off of a David Silva back to Carrick who proceeds to gift a soft pass to Yaya Toure who exploded into the box on a slight diagonal run and put the dagger into the heart of all Red Devil fans by sliding the ball through Van der Sar’s legs and into the back of the net. Great run, great goal. Advantage City.

From this point on, Manchester City always looked like they would go on to win with only one other bright spot coming in the 66th minute. United’s only real second-half opportunity came from a free kick from Nani. Joe Hart made a great save and pushed the shot off of the cross bar, On replay you could see the ball deflected off of Mario Balotelli allowing the save.

United’s hopes of finding an equalizer would suffer a huge blow in the 72nd minute. Paul Scholes put in a horribly timed, studs up, tackle on Pablo Zabaleta and earned himself a straight red card. Game, set, match.

United play again this Tuesday and we’ll see how/if they manage to bounce back from this defeat.

You can see the full highlights below:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy0NxOxNdAs

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