Spot-on Tevez brings relief

MAN UNITED 1, QPR 0

MANCHESTER United were forced to rely on a late Carlos Tevez penalty to defeat Coca-Cola Championship club QPR and squeeze into the quarter-finals of the Carling Cup.

Sir Alex Ferguson’s shadow squad - Gary Neville, Anderson and Ji-Sung Park were the only survivors from Saturday’s starting line-up at Arsenal - laboured in an unconvincing display against the Londoners.

But with the spectre of extra time looming came the pivotal moment of the night when substitute Danny Welbeck won the spot-kick following a clumsy challenge by right-back Peter Ramage.

As Tevez scored only his second goal of the season from 12 yards after a weaving run-up, it brought an enormous sigh of relief from the hardy souls on a bitterly cold and rainswept night at Old Trafford.

Sir Alex Ferguson admitted his side had made hard work of their victory, though he thought it was deserved.

He explained: “QPR defended well, as we expected, so it was always going to be tough. But the attitude of the players was pleasing and they worked hard.

“We are creating a lot of chances at the moment, but they are not going in for us, but it will come.”

There was an all-star cast on the sidelines as Edwin van der Sar, Patrice Evra, Rio Ferdinand, Cristiano Ronaldo and Wayne Rooney sat out the cup tie while Nemanja Vidic and Michael Carrick were the big hitters on the bench.

Ryan Giggs joined Owen Hargreaves, Darren Fletcher and Paul Scholes on the injured list.

The opening period was a non-event and on the odd occasion United threatened it was the lively Tevez who was at the heart of most of the attacking moves.

But it took the best part of an hour before United carved out their first clear-cut chance when Rafael da Silva wriggled free on the right to set up Park whose shot struck a post.

That was quickly followed by Tevez and Anderson both being denied by smart saves from keeper Radek Cerny as the Reds raised the tempo.

It took the goal from Tevez to spark QPR to life and they might have equalised when substitute Samuel Di Camine had an effort ruled out for offside while in the fourth minute of stoppage time Emmanuel Jorge Ledesma, another replacement, had the chance to cover himself in glory but he shot agonisingly wide.

On the other hand, Nani was twice denied by Cerny, who also pulled off another fine save to thwart Park as United, not for the first time this season, were let down by the lack of a cutting edge in front of goal.