From The Times
January 7, 2008

David Carney happy to prove David Moyes wrong

Bolton 0 Sheffield Utd 1

Neil Johnston at the Reebok Stadium

The magic of the FA Cup may be dead and buried in Reading, but it is alive thousands of miles away in Sydney. Just ask David Carney, Sheffield United’s Australian winger.

Carney is only 24, but his career has been filled with more drama than an episode of Neighbours. He was released by Everton after appearing alongside Wayne Rooney in the 2002 FA Youth Cup final and returned to Sydney after short and unhappy spells at Oldham Athletic, Halifax Town and Hamilton Academical.

In New South Wales, his career received an unexpected lift when he was signed to play alongside Dwight Yorke at Sydney FC. He has not looked back since. Carney’s pace and goals helped his home-town club to win the A-League and, on the back of that, he was called up by Australia and selected ahead of Harry Kewell.

It was while he was on international duty that Carney came to the attention of Bryan Robson and the Sheffield United manager acted quickly to sign him in August. Fastforward to Saturday evening and, while David Moyes was conducting an urgent inquest into Everton’s surprise FA Cup exit at the hands of Oldham, the Coca-Cola League One club, Carney was on the phone to Sydney informing excited friends and relatives of the goal he scored to knock Bolton Wanderers, the Barclays Premier League club, out of the tournament and earn United a place in the fourth round.

For Carney, the FA Cup had just provided him with one of the highlights of his career and justified his decision to pursue a career in the sport after the massive disappointment of being rejected by Everton. “I don’t have a bad word to say about David Moyes,” he said. “He knew I had talent, but it had reached the stage whether he wanted to keep me on or not.

“Of course I was disappointed he let me go, but he said he would keep an eye on me and I hope he does. But I think he’s a great manager and I have a huge respect for him.”

Carney’s first goal for Sheffield United not only produced one of the surprises of the third round, it also provided his manager much-needed breathing space. Fans had been calling for Robson to be sacked after his team, who were expected to bounce straight back to the top flight after relegation to the Championship, lurched towards the wrong end of the table. They are only five points from safety, with tricky matches against fast-improving Queens Park Rangers and Sheffield Wednesday, their city rivals, looming on the horizon.

But Robson’s team demonstrated that they have the stomach for a battle as they matched a poor Bolton team before Carney settled an uneventful tie three minutes before half-time when he showed terrific composure to find the net.

Gary Megson, the Bolton manager, made it clear that he has Premier League survival rather than Cup glory at the top of his agenda when he made seven changes to the team who had beaten Derby County three days earlier. Yet he refused to make excuses for a tame defeat. Without Nicolas Anelka, their leading scorer and a target for Chelsea, Bolton rarely looked like scoring, while El-Hadji Diouf’s final game before reporting for African Cup of Nations duty with Senegal was cut short when he picked up his eleventh yellow card of the season, prompting Megson to substitute him.

“There are no excuses,” the Bolton manager said. “I thought we set off quite well, but United started to get themselves on top. Once they went ahead, they played even better, which was disappointing from my point of view. Some of my players have not taken their chance to impress.”

Bolton (4-4-2) A Al Habsi 6 N Hunt 6 L Michalik 6 A O’Brien 5 G Cid Y 4 J O’Brien 6 S Giannakopoulos 5 D Guthrie 5 T Cohen Y 5 D Braaten 5 E-H Diouf Y 5. Substitutes B Dzemaili 4 (for Hunt, 46min), C Wilhelmsson 3 (for Diouf, 63), A Méïté (for A O’Brien, 77). Not used A Bogdan, Andranik.

Sheffield United (4-5-1) P Kenny 6 D Geary 7 M Kilgallon 7 L Bromby 7 C Armstrong Y 7 D Carney 8 L Hendrie 7 N Montgomery 7 S Quinn 7 J Stead Y 6 L Shelton 5. Substitutes W Sharp (for Hendrie, 72min), R Hulse (for Shelton, 72), K Gillespie (for Geary, 75). Not used I Bennett, C Lucketti.

Referee P Walton
Attendance 15,286