Cristiano Ronaldo of Manchester United celebrates scoring his team's fifth goal during the Barclays Premier League match between Manchester United and Stoke City at Old Trafford on November 15, 2008 in Manchester, England. (Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images) *** Local Caption *** Cristiano Ronaldo *** Local Caption *** Cristiano Ronaldo 
"Hey, Sir Alex! Remember me?
Ten-man Manchester United held off Manchester City to win the Manchester Derby! Soccerlens brought you the action, live! Click below for the live-blog and feel free to leave comments!
Manchester United’s 2007-2008 season was a rousing success by any standard. However, the one blight on their resume from last season was their season sweep at the hands of Manchester City. Especially hurtful was the loss that took place on the day United commemorated the victims of the Munich Air tragedy. United also come in having gone more than two matches without scoring a goal. The good news for them is that Dimitar Berbatov is back in training, and Cristiano Ronaldo, who took knocks against Aston Villa last weekend and against Villarreal in midweek, looks like he’ll be good to go.
As for Manchester City, they are coming off a huge win against Arsenal last weekend and really need a good result against United if they want to get back into the hunt for a European bid. Robinho will be a game-time decision after he left the Arsenal match with an injury, and Pablo Zabaleta is nursing a thigh strain and will hope to recover in time.
The emotions should be high as both clubs have a lot at stake. Tune and find out which side prevails!
Manchester City: Hart, Richards, Kompany, Dunne (c), Garrido, Wright-Phillips, Ireland, Hamann, Vassell, Robinho, Benjani.
Subs: Schmeichel, Ball, Zabaleta, Elano, Jo, Ben-Haim, Sturridge.
Only one change from the squad that beat Schalke on Thursday as Robinho has been deemed fit to play and will return to the lineup in place of Sturridge. Zabaleta, who was nursing an injury, will start the match on the bench, as will Elano, who missed out on the Schalke match. Ireland has scored four goals in his last three matches.
Manchester United: Van der Sar, Rafael Da Silva, Ferdinand (c), Vidic, Evra, Ronaldo, Carrick, Fletcher, Park, Rooney, Berbatov.
Subs: Foster, Anderson, Giggs, Nani, O’Shea, Evans, Tevez.
There are a few changes from the side that drew, 0-0, with Villarreal. The big news is that Berbatov has seemingly recovered from his hamstring injury and will make the start today. Rafael will come in for O’Shea at right-back while Vidic reclaims his starting spot from Evans, who started against Villarreal on Tuesday. Park will come in for Nani while Anderson will go to the bench to make room for the returning Berbatov. And, of course, Tevez will start the match on the bench once again.
Manchester United fans can look forward to watching Cristiano Ronaldo for at least another year. Sir Alex Ferguson welcomed Cristiano Ronaldo back to Manchester United yesterday and then raised the possibility of the Portugal forward agreeing a new contract at Old Trafford before the season begins next weekend.After declaring in an interview this week that he would be staying at United for at least another season, Ronaldo made a point of reiterating his wish “one day” to play for Real and be closer to his family in Portugal. Ferguson dismissed suggestions that Ronaldo's motivation may be adversely affected by being denied his dream move and claimed that, with time, the Portuguese will increasingly value his career at Old Trafford.
But while the Spanish champions are unlikely to concede defeat in their efforts to sign Ronaldo — many believe a transfer has simply been delayed by 12 months in the wake of Ferguson’s refusal to sell — the United manager feels that the longer the 23-year-old stays at the club, the more he will realise that the grass is not greener elsewhere and that there is no better place to play his football.
United have kept to their promise not to improve the five-year, £120,000-a-week contract that Ronaldo signed in April 2007, but it will be in their interest to have secured the prized asset on a new deal before the start of the 2009-10 campaign.
Sir Alex Ferguson believes Dimitar Berbatov will give Manchester United's attack a "new and exciting dimension" this season.
Manchester United and Portugal goal ace Cristiano Ronaldo was named FIFPro World Player of the Year on Tuesday.
I have great faith in Arsene Wenger. He has a method of playing football that I totally endorse. Although I have absolutely no allegiance to Arsenal, in fact quite the opposite, I love watching them play. I think that football should be played the Arsenal way.
Likely to lose?
Having said all that, it can be no coincidence that Arsenal have lost to Fulham, Hull and Stoke already this season. Which of the other top four sides are likely to lose to those three teams. That’s right. None of them.
Arsene Wenger has packed his team full of young clever ball players, but when a team is prepared to battle, quite simply the Gunners go missing. Manchester United, Chelsea and even Liverpool, this season, are prepared to win games by getting stuck in. They play great football but if they first need to win the battle, they are quite prepared to do so.
Wicked long throws
Nobody should be shocked that Stoke are going to get the ball into the box as much as possible aiming for their two big, powerful strikers Ricardo Fuller and Mamady Sidibe. Nobody should be shocked by the fact that they are most dangerous from the wicked long throws of Rory Delap. Despite this, Arsenal were totally unable to cope.
Centre halves Kolo Toure and Michael Silvestre were totally dominated by the Stoke front two, and you would have thought that the battling pair were a couple of world beaters. For a side with Premier League and Champions League ambitions, it was not much short of embarrassing.
Rotation policy?
Arsenal went into the game with Theo Walcott and Robin Van Persie on the bench. Was this Arsene Wenger adopting a Rafa Benitez style rotation policy or was it simply an attempt by the manager to put more of his physically strong players on the pitch to try to match Stoke?
Shouldn’t Arsenal let Stoke be worried about them rather than changing things because they are worried by Stoke? The fact that both Stoke goals, predictably came from Delap throws, shows that whatever Wenger was trying to do he failed miserably.
Capitulated
The fact is that Arsenal totally capitulated under the pressure Stoke exerted on them and in those ninety minutes Arsenal showed why they cannot win the Premier League. Wenger constantly talks about the promise of his team, but with a few trophy less seasons behind them, they have got to deliver now.
Throwing a 4-2 lead away in injury time against Tottenham and allowing themselves to be totally dominated, bullied and overrun by Stoke City, both go to show that the alleged promise is unlikely to come to fruition for another season.
Petulant
When Van Persie did get a chance of the bench, he needlessly barged into Stoke goalkeeper Sorenson after being on the pitch for just twelve minutes and got himself sent off. It was a petulant act by a petulant player who should know better.
With Cesc Fabregas looking like a shadow of the player that we saw in the first half of last season, it was difficult to see how Arsenal could create enough to make Stoke worry about defending rather than driving forward towards the Arsenal goal.
Things got even worse for Arsenal when Theo Walcott, after coming on as a substitute, was carried off after a lengthy delay.
Time to deliver
So is it right that Arsene Wenger continues to talk about his side being so young and having so much potential, or is it time for the excuses to stop and the team to start to deliver?
Let’s look at yesterday’s starting line-up. Manuel Almunia, aged thirty one. Sagna, aged twenty-five, French international. Toure, aged twenty-seven, forty-five international caps. Silvestre, aged thirty-one, forty caps for France. Clichy, aged twenty-three, French international. Denilson, aged twenty. Fabregas, aged twenty-one, thirty-six caps for Spain, European Championship winner. Song, aged twenty-one, twelve international caps. Diaby, aged twenty-two, French international. Adebayor, aged twenty-four, thirty-eight international caps. Bendtner, aged twenty, twenty-one international caps.
So with the exception of Almunia who is over thirty, and Denilson, who is a genuine prospect, the whole team are international footballers. There isn’t a teenager amongst them and there are four players of twenty-five and over.
Producing the goods
I’m afraid it is time for Arsene Wenger to stop talking about potential and start producing the goods. This team should be good enough to beat the likes of Stoke but they simply are not. Instead of talking about doing things the right way, Wenger should be looking for a goalkeeper, two centre-halves and a midfield player in the January transfer window. If he doesn’t, Arsenal may struggle to get fourth place and although it seems almost unthinkable, Arsene Wenger may struggle to keep his job.
The Chelsea skipper has said that he firmly believes that Frank Lampard is the best midfield player in England.
“Frank does it season after season. He is different class. In training he is unbelievable and he works so hard on his shooting and his running off the ball. We will do a warm-down and he will be doing laps around the field on his own. He is an inspiration to everyone in the team to really push on and give it everything in our short careers.”
Whilst there are several other contenders around the country, I would imagine that this would boil down to a straight choice between Lampard and Liverpool’s Steve Gerrard. There have been many arguments about whether they can play together, but which one is actually the better player?
It is not possible to compare players in a totally scientific way, but there are some categories where you can compare like for like. We’ll try to do that here and see if a clear winner emerges.
Despite an apparent loss of form last season, Lampard continues to be a driving force for Chelsea in the middle of the park, and scored a wonderful chip during a comfortable 3-0 win over Hull on Wednesday.
Gerrard has also had his doubters but is still the ‘main man’ at Liverpool, and when they needed someone with a cool head to take a crucial penalty on Wednesday, there was nobody else in the frame.
We can look at statistics in relation to games played, goals scored, team honours won, England caps and goals and personal awards won, particularly those selected by other players.
International Career
In relation to England caps, Gerrard has seventy and has scored fourteen goals and Lampard has sixty-six and has also scored fourteen goals. That is too close to award that section to either of them. I would say that both players have performed, on average, slightly below the level for England than we all think they could do when watching them at their clubs.
It is impossible to award this category to either man and therefore the score remains at:
Steve Gerrard 0-0 Frank Lampard
Club career
We will look at the statistics since the 2001-02 season when both players were established at their current clubs and with the national side.
Steve Gerrard has played three hundred and fifty two games in all competitions, scoring ninety goals. Frank Lampard has played three hundred and eighty three games and scored one hundred and seventeen goals.
Lampard nicks the award on games played but of course, he hasn’t been subject to Rafa Benitez’s wonderful rotation policy. In any case, he has only played an average of about four extra games per season, so I am not giving this section to him based purely on that.
The ratio of goalscoring needs to be used as well. For Gerrard the figure is one goal every 3.70 games. Lampard comes in at one goal every 3.27 games.
Based on the fact that Lampard has played slightly more games and scores slightly more often, this section goes to him.
Steve Gerrard 0-1 Frank Lampard
Team honours
Steve Gerrard has collected seven medals with Liverpool in the time period we are looking at. He has won the Champions League, two Uefa Super Cups, the FA Cup, the League Cup and two community shields.
Frank Lampard has collected six medals. Two Premier Leagues, the FA Cup, two League Cups and the Community Shield.
I’m not sure you can split them on this one. I think Stevie G would probably swap his Champions League medal for Lamps’ Premier League one, but Lamps would probably be happy to do that swap.
After this season, one of the players might take a serious lead, but at the moment it is too close to call.
Steve Gerrard 0-1 Frank Lampard
Individual honours
Both players have been recognised for their ability and they have been awarded the title of Uefa Club Player of the Year on one occasion. They have also both been selected in the FIFpro world team and the Uefa team of the year, but Gerrard has the edge on both of those statistics.
Steve Gerrard has once been voted as the players player of the year by his fellow professionals, an award that Lampard has never won. That puts Steve Gerrard in the lead and the final point to sway things in his favour is that on five occasions his fellow professionals have selected him in their Premier League team of the year. Frank Lampard has also been selected, but only on three occasions.
Great record for both, but there can only be one winner.
Steve Gerrard 1-1 Frank Lampard
There we are then. After all that I’ve got them absolutely level again. Come on, you can decide once and for
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