Rio should apologise - and not on Twitter

Rio Ferdinand should apologise to Edwin van der Sar for the poor backpass that started the chain of events before Manchester City's FA Cup goal - and he should to it in person, not via a stupid Twitter comment.

Everyone talked about Michael Carrick's lazy ball that directly resulted in Yaya Toure's winner and indeed it exposed a failing in the Manchester United midfielder's game: sometimes he is brilliant, but all-too-often he makes these kinds of sloppy errors.

But Ferdinand's initial backpass was poor and selfish: 99 times out of 100 he clears his lines but he saw an easier option in playing it back to his goalkeeper.

Edwin is a fine striker of the ball and you can see that it bobbled into him. Sure, John O'Shea was the recipient and he was able to offload it to Carrick, who should have seen to it, but Rio is supposed to exude calm at the back and should have done a lot better.

After the game Rio apologised to the fans via Twitter, which I think is ridiculous. This vogue of players shirking their responsibilities with a 140-character 'update' is unacceptable.

If you want to say sorry about something, do it straight away on television or - if it involves fellow team-mates - to their faces in the dressing room.

Saying it on Twitter carries no weight at all.

I predicted City would bottle it but, fair play to them, they didn't. The first 25-30 minutes I thought were United's to win it; had Dimitar Berbatov taken one of his two chances I think that would have been the case.

After that City found some belief and, once they took the lead, they never looked like they'd lose the game - they rarely do from those positions.

United's midfield has been lacking in both creativity and strength this season and it was exposed by City.

Roberto Mancini's side will be delighted to have got that elusive win against United and, more importantly, to have put themselves in a position where they are clear favourites to finally win a trophy.

It's anything but a given though - they are up against a team in Stoke who are physically stronger than them and who have a great deal of attacking ability out wide: two places where City could come up short.

City's tendency to play a five-man, defensive midfield plays into Stoke's hands as the Potters will largely bypass the central trio; City are also not the strongest at full-back, and in Jermaine Pennant and Matthew Etherington Stoke have two wingers in brilliant form.

Pennant was in last-chance saloon when he joined Stoke, washed up in England and a flop in Spain. But Tony Pulis seems to have trimmed that chip on his shoulder and he is playing his best football - not even Arsene Wenger was able to do that.

Etherington similarly has overcome different problems and is one of the best wide-men in the country at the moment.

On top of that Stoke have a central defensive pairing that will gobble up a lone striker all day - particularly if that striker is a target man. City desperately need Carlos Tevez back before the end of the season as he is the only striker there who adds guile and trickery to his physical threat, which you need to get the better of Robert Huth and Ryan Shawcross.

Given the relative money spent Stoke will be there to enjoy the day, relaxed, with no tension and nothing to lose. They will believe they can do it and will enjoy the way City play - I'm not sure Mancini will or can change from playing five in midfield.

You don't need a three of Yaya Toure, Nigel de Jong and Gareth Barry when playing Stoke: there isn't a central midfield battle to win and you need two out wide and two up top if you're going to test Stoke's back four - you have to pass it around them, not through or over them.

Can City move away from a counter-attacking mentality? They will have to take the initiative to beat Stoke and I'm not sure they are set up to do that.