Southend 1 Manchester United 0

Manchester United crashed out of the Carling Cup against Championship struggler's Southend United after a frustrating evening at Roots Hall. Freddy Eastwood's superb free-kick was enough for the Shrimpers, who were indebted to an outstanding performance from goalkeeper Darryl Flavahan. The hosts were good value for their win despite forging few scoring opportunities, having defended heroically throughout the 90 minutes. Mindful of the hard work his inexperienced side had made of negotiating Crewe Alexandra in the third round, Sir Alex Ferguson named a stronger side for the trip to Roots Hall.In came, most notably, Wayne Rooney and Cristiano Ronaldo as Sir Alex showed his desire to make a successful defence of the trophy procured against Wigan Athletic last February.

For all their reinforcements, however, it was again the underdogs who started the tie in finer fettle and captain Wes Brown had to be alert to block Eastwood's fourth-minute shot.United gradually grew into the game and Rooney was only fractionally away from reaching Gabriel Heinze's fine deep cross after 10 minutes.The England striker showed a flash of magic eight minutes later to out manouevre Spencer Prior with a clever flick, but he scuffed his shot straight to Flahavan.

The hosts continued to give as good as they got, and it was far from against the run of play when Eastwood fired them ahead after 26 minutes.His 30-yard free kick flew brilliantly into the top corner of Tomasz Kuszczak's goal to delight the home crowd, who had seen their side go 12 games without a win hitherto.