Quiet at carrington today as the etam from last night were only inside doing wahetever warm downs they do + massages etc.Already out though when I got there were the reserves + Mancini and Kidd who were deep in conversation. A photographer told me he expected Vieira out today but there was no sign.He is hoping to play v Scunthorpe and definitely wants to play in the 2nd leg.
After a short while the "bench" players from last night came out along with Bridge and the only 1 missing was Silvinho , maybe injured based on that "run" last night.
As ever Mancini did the same with this group that he has done each day moving around the field with the players moving around him but keeping the team shape he wants when we havent got the ball. The group were:
Cunningham,Nedum,Vidal,Trippier
Ireland,Tutte and i think Ibrahim
Petrov,Robinho and Benjani.
After a little while doing this they split into 2 groups with Mancini again working with the defensive unit mostly on shape and without a ball whilst the other group played a kind of passing/keep ball in a circle with the emphasis on strong driven passing to test the control and touch of the players. As might be expected some of the passes were seriously smashed and control was almost impossible but they seemed to be having fun. Robinho seemed to be in a decent frame of mind based on the pictures taken by the photographer.
Bridge was out there which is good news even though with a strapping on his knee.