Carling Cup, Coyle, Rosicky

The Carling Cup semis start tonight with Villa taking on Blackburn, the one that no-one really cares about. Villa will be favourites but Blackburn deservedly beat Chelsea in the last round, despite having to take them to penalties to do so. These are of course 2 legged affairs and if the rules haven't changed from 2007 then away goals only count after extra time. I remember 2007 because I was lucky enough to go to Arsenal v Spurs that year, the White Hart Lane leg having finished 2-2 (after a 2-0 Spurs lead) and the Grove leg was 1-1 after 90. We went on to score 2 more in extra time to send those dirty boys back up the Seven Sisters Road, revenge was painful the following year though.... The main event is unquestionably tomorrow at Eastlands for the Manchester derby. I'm glad the Beeb have finally taken some note in this competition by picking up the game for live TV, should be an intriguing clash. The red half edged a thrilling 4-3 at Old Trafford earlier in the season, there was the Owen goal, the Bellamy goals, the Rio horror show and Carlos Tevez getting booed by his old fans, much to the Argentine's confusion. Make no mistake this is a great competition to be involved in, I would have been delighted if Arsenal were in the semis, as I've said before it was a chance to finally bury that 'haven't won anything in....' tag. A day out at Wembley will be most welcome for 2 lucky clubs, I'll take a punt on Villa v City.

Owen Coyle has been the subject of a bit of a tug-of-war in the last few days between current club Burnley, and possible future employers Bolton. An approach was made by Bolton to steal Coyle away, and as I write all compensation issues are solved and it is basically down to Coyle now to decide what he wants to do - apparently he asked for 24 hours to sleep on it. Coyle has done well with Burnley, a side from an unfashionable part of the world he's got them promoted to the Premier League and is doing ok. Their away form has admittedly been very poor but they've turned Turf Moor into a bit of a fortress. Bolton sit in the relegation zone two points worse off that Burnley albeit with 2 games in hand, but the club are almost famous now for ugly dirty football, so I hope Coyle stays and Bolton go down. He had a brief spell with the....Reebokers? as a player, which included a very important game which if I talk about too long in Reading, SAS Royals fans will come smashing through my window to kill me, but surely sense will prevail ahead of sentimentality. The only other reason he must be interested then, is money. Money for himself and money to spend on players. Bolton aren't exactly rolling in it, but he must know that the finances available to him would be considerably more than the funds he currently has. Who knows, it could be Coyle's dream to turn Bolton into an attacking, free flowing, footballing team more akin to his current side. Amazingly, he turned down an approach from Celtic in the summer but now he's willing to hedge it all on a trip across the North for the sake of a few quid. I wouldn't if I were you Owen.

Finally, good news from the Arsenal, Tomas Rosicky has signed a new contract with the club, his old deal was up in the summer. True to Arsenal form it's a 'long term contract' which doesn't stipulate the length, I would think it's 3 years though as Rosicky is already an old man at 29. I've loved the lad since he stepped into the club in 2006, a good engine, a sly eye for a pass and has one hell of a hit on him. His spell at the club has been dogged by injuries though, the worst coming in January 2008 where he limped off against Newcastle, not to be seen again for an astonishing 18 months. It was some kind of rare hamstring tendon problem, the likes of which Wenger had apparently never seen before, and numerous surgeries were unable to stop the pain for Super Tom. He spoke recently of his time out and the fear he had that he would never play again, but thankfully that is behind him now and he's back involved in the team. It shows some tremendous faith from the boss to stick with the player, and he's well aware that now is the time to pay back all that faith and patience by winning the league with this team. He's one of the old heads in the team now, so he's got a big responsibility to show these kids the way to pick up trophies. This signing marks a busy period for the club, they have re-signed 15 players in the last 9 months, including the likes of Van Persie, Walcott, Song and Eduardo. The appointment of Ivan Gazidis as Chief Exec has been an excellent one, we've brought in Arshavin and Vermaelan in that time, and done all the other aforementioned in-house signage. Come on you Gunners! Take her easy.