Roy Keane may permanently abandon his career as a football manager after walking out of ailing Sunderland last week.

While reports have linked Keane with a move to struggling Blackburn Rovers, sources close to the Irishman have indicated that he will be taking a long break from the game.

Keane’s plight elicited a rare moment of empathy from Manchester United supremo Sir Alex Ferguson, who worked with Keane when he played for the Red Devils.

“But there are very few managers that last more than 3-4 years at a club nowadays and the lifespan of a manager at a club is getting shorter and shorter,” Ferguson told the Guardian. “They can move on to different challenges, but it’s a very precarious industry nowadays and a very emotional game.”

Mark Hughes, another Manchester United stalwart turned manager believes that Keane will be back. However, others believe that even should Keane wish to return to management its unlikely that he’ll find any takers amongst the Premiership clubs after he walked out of Sunderland 48 hours before a crucial Premier League clash.

“No-one will give him the opportunity to manage a football club because they won’t trust him,” ex-Ireland teammate Tony Cascarino said. “That’s the bottom line.”

Aston Villa reclaimed 5th place on the Premier league table on Sunday by defeating Everton in a five goal thriller in Liverpool.

A see-sawing game saw Aston Villa leading Liverpool 2-1 with just seconds of regulation time left on the clock. Everton then struck with an excellent goal by Joleon Lescott, and looked to have secured a point before Ashley Young conjured a goal out of nowhere 3 minutes into stoppage time.

Unfortunately for Aston Villa none of the top four clubs in the Premier League stumbled on the weekend, which means the club failed to make up ground on the pace-setters. However, the result did allow Villa to edge past Hull City on the league table. Everton, meanwhile, dropped down to 8th place.

“It’s a brilliant victory,” Young told Sky Sports. “I had an opportunity in the second half that I should have taken, so to win the game at the death shows the character of the boys in our squad. We defended brilliantly today and it’s a brilliant feeling to get a goal at the death.”

Everton boss David Moyes felt his side and been cheated out of a point by Young’s effort, telling Sky: “The players didn’t deserve that. But there was a wee bit of disarray when we should have seen the game out. I’ve not seen the winner yet - but when we scored and kicked off I thought ‘this must be time up’.”

Liverpool held on to the top spot on the Premier League table on Saturday despite the other three teams in the top four winning their respective matches.

The Reds achieved the most comprehensive victory of the weekend, handing out a 3-1 hiding to Blackburn Rovers. The Liverpool performance was a significant improvement after struggling to hold West Ham to a draw earlier in the week.

All four of the game’s goals were scored in the final 22 minutes of the match, with Xabi Alonson opening Liverpool’s account off a deft pass from Steven Gerrard. Yossi Benayoun scored Liverpool’s next goal before Blackburn pulled a goal back through Roque Santa Cruz.

Steven Gerrard was responsible for his club’s final goal, scoring in injury time to bring the Liverpool goal tally to 3.

“Clearly it was an important three points for us,” Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez said after the match. “We are in a very good position and we want to stay there.”

Benitez also backed his team to stay at the top of the Premiership, saying: “We have to play with confidence because we’re in a very good position.”

“If we can move and pass the ball like we did against Blackburn and be more clinical in front of goal, that will be really important through Christmas time.”

Chelsea defeated Bolton 2-0 in the Premiership on Saturday, ending a string of disappointing results for the club. However, the win was overshadowed by rumours of a rift in the Blues camp over the training methods of coach Luiz Felipe Scolari.

Scolari failed to attend the post match conference on Saturday, further fanning speculation that all in not well in the Chelsea set-up. John Terry and Frank Lampard are apparently both concerned that Chelsea training sessions are too relaxed and predictable.

Chelsea assistant manager Ray Wilkins moved quickly to implement damage control, telling reporters: “I have said before, the spirit in the camp is absolutely first class. They performed to a very high standard.”

“The training they do is first class. They love it, they enjoy it and you can see they don’t need anything more intense. They have been well up for every game they have played. Unfortunately in football, sometimes you get beat.”

While Wilkins stopped short of suggesting that group hugs were the order of the day in the Chelsea dressing room, he did point out that Saturday’s victory was Chelsea’s 11th straight win on the road. Wilkins then claimed that fatigue had prevented Scolari from attending the post-match conference.

Manchester United powered into the semifinals of the Carling Cup on Thursday night, defeating Blackburn Rovers 5-3 in a goal-fest at Old Trafford.

The star of the show was United’s Carlos Tevez, who answered his critics with a stunning 4 goal haul that included both the first and final goals of the match. Blackburn Rovers did well to challenge the Manchester United defence, pulling back 3 goals.

South African forward Benni McCarthy was the pick of Blackburn’s players and scored twice for his club after coming into the game off the bench. Matt Derbyshire scored Blackburn’s third goal, and the match looked headed for a thrilling finale before Tevez sealed a United win with his final goal.

The win illustrated Manchester United’s strength in depth, with the second-string side producing one of United’s more impressive performances this season.

“Now we’re in the semi-final that’s two extra games of course and getting fixtures and getting dates for those games is going to be difficult because we’ve got to find dates for Fulham and for Wigan and it’s not going to be easy,” Sir Alex Ferguson told the AFP after the match.

“The one good thing is that we’ve got a big strong squad, I won’t be letting anyone else out on loan and I want to keep everyone together because I’m going to need them.”

Tottenham Hotspur are on course to defend their Carling Cup title after defeating Watford 2-1 in the semifinals yesterday evening.

Watford drew first blood in the Carling Cup semifinal at Vicarage Road, as Tamas Priskin scored early for the home side. Tottenham drew level before half-time when Roman Pavluchenko was gifted an opportunity from the penalty spot.

Matters remained level until the last 15 minutes of the game, when Darren Brent came off the bench for Tottenham Hotspur to score the winning goal for his club.

The result means that Harry Redknapp is in with a good chance of making his way to Wembley for a second consecutive cup final. Redknapp took Portsmouth all the way in the FA Cup earlier this year.

“We’d love to reach the final,” Redknapp told the AFP. “I’m sure they enjoyed their day but they won the final and couldn’t win a league game. We’ve got to realise where our priorities are. League games are all important for us.”

“You get this close and it’s important to try to go all the way now. The priority is the league, then secondly this competition because we have a genuine chance.”

Derby County are through to the semifinals of the Carling Cup for the first time in their history after knocking Stoke City out of the tournament at Britannia Stadium.

Derby triumphed 1-0 in an evenly matched encounter that began with a dull first half, before both clubs created a flurry of scoring opportunities in the second half.

It was Derby’s Nathan Ellington who finally put his club ahead of Stoke, stroking home an effortless penalty minutes into extra time to hand a club presently languishing in the Football Championship a win over a Premiership team.

“That’s the way he takes them,” Derby manager Paul Jewell said after the match. “One of these days he’ll miss one and he’ll get a rollicking from me. But he waits to see which way the keeper dives. Credit to the lad.”

Stoke manager Tony Pulis blamed the referee for his side’s capitulation, but acknowledged that his side had been some way of the form that saw them hold Hull to a draw in the Premiership on the weekend.

“He made a couple of mistakes in my book, but then so did a few of my players. It was our fault we have gone out, we had plenty of chances and Ricardo Fuller could have had four. But I am not going to slaughter the referee, he just made a couple of mistakes.”

Arsenal’s topsy-turvy season continued last night after they crashed out of the Carling Cup in a shock 2-0 defeat to Championship side Burnley.

It was Burnley’s second big four scalp in this year’s Carling Cup, following on their victory over Chelsea. The result will see Burnley participate in its first Carling Cup semi-final in 25 years.

“All the cameras are here so they must’ve known there would be an upset here,” Burnley goalkeeper Brian Jensen said after the match. “Anything can happen in football, so with a good draw and a little bit of luck, who knows how far we can go.”

Both of Burnley’s goals were scored by 20 year old Kevin McDonald, who showed glimpses of star quality as he helped his club beat one of the top teams in English football.

“Obviously the best goals I’ve scored so far,” said McDonald, whose two goals brought his goal tally for his club to three. The young Scot joined Burnley from Dundee United in June.

Arsenal fielded a second-string side for the Carling Cup semi-final, with the squad light on top-flight experience. Arsene Wenger brought on some of his more established players later in the game, but they were unable to prevent Burnley from taking the honours at the Turf Moor.

Premier League Fixtures for the coming week:

Saturday, 6 December 2008
12:45 Fulham v Man City
15:00 Arsenal v Wigan,
15:00 Blackburn v Liverpool
15:00 Bolton v Chelsea
15:00 Hull v Middlesbrough
15:00 Newcastle v Stoke
17:30 Man Utd v Sunderland

Sunday, 7 December 2008
15:00 West Brom v Portsmouth
16:00 Everton v Aston Villa

Monday, 8 December 2008
20:00 West Ham v Tottenham