Buzzin Football

Manchester City manager Mark Hughes has accused the tetchy Arsene Wenger of being ungracious in defeat after the Arsenal manager refused to shake his hand following the 3-0 hammering in the Carling Cup quarter final at Eastlands.

Both Wenger and Hughes were involved in a verbal confrontation throughout most of the game, bending the ear of the fourth official, with the Arsenal boss at one time moaning that Hughes had left his technical area.

Wenger was particularly animated, often literally dancing in anger on the touchline at every refereeing decision that went against his team, as Manchester City finally took control of the game in the second half.

The much lauded young Gunners were, in the end, no match against the experience of Manchester City and despite the obvious qualities of the Arsenal squad, how long can they continue without a trophy to show for their efforts.

It has become the norm for the bigger teams to field their less experienced players in the Carling Cup competition and Chelsea followed the example of the Gunners by changing eight players from the team that had beaten Arsenal on Sunday for their game at Blackburn Rovers.

Inevitably they too paid the price of inexperience, losing out on penalties to Rovers, with Paul Robinson the goalkeeping hero with a brilliant save save from Ballack’s penalty and also denying the youngster Kakuta.

The game should never have reached that stage as Blackburn really deserved to win in normal time, only to see Ferreira equalise in the final moments of extra time. At 3-3, Blackburn kept their cool to run out 4-3 winners on penalties.

Carlo Ancelotti said after the game that he was disappointed with the result after a triple half time substitution gamble put Chelsea back into the game. The loss of Kalou with 20 minutes of normal time remaining meant that Chelsea had to play the remainder of the game with only ten men. But he did have the grace to shake the hand of Blackburn’s victorious caretaker manager Neil McDonald after the defeat.

Manchester City will face local rivals United in the semi final, a classic in the making surely, while Blackburn Rovers will play Aston Villa in the other two legged game.