Rooney Heads To Wembley

Wayne Rooney's header leaves Manchester City 3-1 down with only seconds remaining

The two teams lined up under the flood lights last night for what was one of the most eagerly anticipated Manchester Derbies in years. The first leg left a bitter taste within the United team as ex-red Carlos Tevez bagged two at Eastlands and taunted the United fans after claiming he was not treated with respect whilst at the club. All of which, along with the prospect of reaching another Carling Cup final, made winning the second leg vital for Manchester United.

The first half was a sea of half chances and it wasn't until the second half that either of the side's keepers were truly tested. When Micah Richard's long range shot seemed destined for the top corner, Edwin Van Der Sar pulled off a phenomenal save high to his left to keep the sides level.

Paul Scholes was the man to break the deadlock after Wayne Rooney played an inch perfect pass to Ryan Giggs who played it back to Portuguese youngster, Nani. After a goal mouth scramble the ball rolled out to Scholes at the edge of the area and he struck home his first League Cup goal in seven years.

It was only 20 minutes later that Carrick passed the ball into the the Manchester City net with great precision and skill after some good build up play by Nani and Darren Fletcher, who later picked up the Man of the Match award. United thought that with less than 20 minutes to go and the aggregate score at 3-2, their place at Wembley was a guarantee. That was until Carlos Tevez continued to haunt his former side by beating Rio Ferdinand in the air to get onto the end of Craig Bellamy's cross and level the aggregate score at 3-3.

With a matter of seconds remaining on the clock, United upped the pressure on City's defence to try and force a winner before extra time. After a world class save by Shay Given prevented Darren Fletcher late on, United gained another corner and it was truly the last possible attack of normal time. United took the corner quick and a one-two between Giggs and new boy Antonio Valencia set up Ryan Giggs to deliver a dangerous cross into the box and inform Rooney got on the end of it and snatched yet another late winner for the reds.

After the memorable 4-3 Manchester derby earlier in the season, no one was surprised to see a high scoreline between the clubs, but I don't think anyone could have imagined the drama on show last night. City's hopes of ending their 34 year trophy drought have taken a hit and now they have to rely on the F.A Cup for any hope of silverware this season.

Not only was this a great Carling Cup semi-final but it was a great derby game, and with Man City's bottomless pit of money growing ever larger, we can only expect this rivalry to grow.

Teens Only Have 800 Word Vocabulary?

Proposed 800 word vocabulary will leave teens jobless

According to government child language adviser, Jean Gross, today's modern teenagers have a vocabulary of no more than 800 words. A vocabulary filled with the phenomenon that is 'teen-speak'. She calls for action to be taken urgently to ensure that today's youth do not struggle to find work because of their inabilities to communicate. This warning comes just a week after she claimed that television is damaging children's development.

"We need to help today's teenagers understand the difference between their text speech and the formal language they need to succeed in life - 800 words will not get you a job," Mrs Gross explained in an interview earlier this week.

The majority of teenagers should have, on average 40,000 words within their vocabulary by the age of 16. However, linguists believe that although teenagers do understand tens-of-thousands of words, they only use approximately 800 of them in daily speech. Jean Gross believes that this is due to social networking sites such as Facebook, Myspace and Twitter. "Teenagers are spending more time communicating through electronic media and text messaging, which is short and brief," she added.

Mrs Gross is planning a campaign to take place next year amongst primary and secondary schools across Britain. The focus behind the campaign is to get students understanding the importance of good communication skills to ensure the best possible future for the younger generations.

The idea of teens only using 800 words out of their 40,000 strong vocabulary seems a bit far-fetched to me, but if this is true then there is every right for concern.

A New Year, Same Old Us!

All of us here at The New Wave hope you had a fattening Christmas and an intoxicating New Year.

We aim to recover from the holidays and break our new year's resolutions as soon as we can so that we can attack your eyes with our sexy journalism once again!

So, until then .... Bye bye!