This was a comfortable win although 5-0 definetly flatters us.
Starting off with a midfield two of Patrick Vieira and Yaya Toure sounded a little incomfortable before kick off with the two of them lacking even half of james Milners work rate between them. As the game progressed it became clear that the footballing brains are just as influencial as the physical vessels that carry them.
Carlos Tevez was deservedly rested, giving Edin Dzeko the chance to partner the newly fit mario balotelli. The strike force worked a lot better than I anticipated. I think a lot of the time Mario Balotelli doesn't know himself what he's going to do with the ball so I had a lot of premature sympathy for Dzeko who had to work him out too. The partnership looked balanced from the start with Balotelli's pace working around balls being played into Dzeko's feet. David Silva was again the glue which held the attack together and he was as impish and creative as ever. Tevez was introduced after around an hour and his partnership with Dzeko also showed encouraging signs with each providing assists for the other.
the game was settled before half time with Patrick Vieira's first goal, after that we played some good football, passing it around nicely and never looking troubled at the back, Micah Richards was again commanding and showed some good attacking initiative - he is certainly stepping up to be our first choice right-back.
This victory see's us face Villa next Wednesday at home and the winner of that to go on and play Everton. in the grand scheme of things not a bad draw at all, especially considering Arsenal will play United considering they can overcome Leyton-Orient in their replay.
This is perhaps now our strongest chance of silverware this season and I would certainly put out our strongest team and make this a priority going forward.
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