Hindsight is a wonderful thing, but what exactly was Fergie trying to do with a central midfield pairing of Giggs and Carrick? I know they are the pairing that has got us to the final recently and performed so well, but surely you pick a team not only to attack the opposition, but to counter their tactics as well? I cant see how a pairing of Giggs and Carrick can ever work against Xavi, Iniesta and Busquets, no matter how deep Rooney drops to help out. In Rome in 2009, Giggs and Carrick were helped out by Anderson in a 3 man midfield. They were still given the run around (although not to the extent of last night) so why did Fergie think a 2 years older Giggs and a Carrick having taken a year and a half to get back to decent form could stop them on their own? Tactical suicide. Its all well and good having the threat of Hernandez up top, but that only works if you can get the ball off Barca in the first place. In the middle of midfield there was no ball winner, no legs, no engine, no strength and no pace. Why wasnt Fletcher or Anderson given a look in? Instead Fergie stuck with the shockingly off the pace Giggs. When at last Carrick was dragged off, his replacements first contribution was to give the ball away in his own box resulting in the 3rd goal. Scholes appearance was nothing more than a damaged limitation exercise and possibly a farewell gesture. Also, why at 3-1 down was Guardiola the only manager out in his technical area? Had Fergie already thrown in the towel? Another thing about last night confirmed what I've been saying all season. Evra is defensively our weak link. Constantly and consistently in no mans land, out of position and completely devoid of any defensive nous. Responsible for Pedro's and Messi's goals, and was also no-where to be found for Villa's. Barca are incredible. The best club side I've ever seen. And it could be a case that no formation or tactic is the answer. Just a reliance on keeping it extremely solid, nicking a goal and hope they have an off day. Fergie said lessons had been learned after Rome. Really? On the evidence of last night, Fergie is still tactically "naive" and major changes are needed in our midfield if we want to get within 10 yards of Barca next time.
Those are actually the two positives I can see. Firstly, SAF might finally realise that whilst he has the odd great tactical insight he is tactically way behind managers like Mourinho, and thus might look for another tactical specialist as an assistant. Secondly he might realise we need someone who can hold possession better in midfield and thus seriously strengthen the squad over the summer. Although even if we had Sneijder, De Rossi and a rejuvenated Rijkaard in midfield last night I don't think we'd have gotten close to Barca on their current form. Ultimately Lineker was right - whoever plays Barca has to pray they have an off day or you just get ****ed. Xavi and Iniesta in particular can play on a different level to anyone else. Some of their midfield play last night bordered on the unreal. Barca would press us, someone would make an error and the midfield would be unable to recover it. We would press Barca, someone would make an error, Xavi or Iniesta would reach the loose ball, bring it under control and pass it off in less than a second. I'm not even sure a ball winner would have made a difference to the result - for all the pressing and harrying they would do, any mistakes by Barca in the middle of the park were inevitably swept up by those two.
I agree. Although i do think we made it more difficult for ourselves with just 2 in the middle. But you could have had half a dozen bryan robsons in there and barca would have found a way through. I cant see fergie getting rid of phelan tbh. Which is a shame cause he comes across as nothing more than a yes man. At least queiroz changed the way we played in europe and seemed to have some tactical contribution and persuasion about him
I dunno, when we played with 3 in 2009 we arguably did worse - no one seemed to know who should be pressing or marking who. We were actually getting near the ball last night, but whenever we did Xavi or Iniesta just swept it up and shifted it on. Those two are unreally good at the moment. I agree - you get the feeling Phelan has been made assistant purely out of loyalty and due to his relationship with some of the first team players. Maybe he's wary of hiring another Queiroz who might piss off some of the best players with his tactics. Sometimes I wish SAF was as ruthless with his backroom staff as he is with the players...
Must say Man U were a bit naive last night One would have thought they would have learnt from the first Arsenal leg against this glorious Barca side Arsenal learnt, in the second leg we didn't go round trying shots on target etc, we played a containing game, and could gave gotten away with it but for the cheating antics of the officials
Give it a rest mate. Barca played you off the park in the second leg - you lost 3-1 just like United did and had the same possession and created no chances. Heck, had Busquets not put through his own net you wouldn't even have scored a goal. Barca hammered you more than they hammered us last night, and they had a weakened line up with no Pique or Alves. In the game that mattered, Arsenal's approach worked no better than United's. At least our game was exciting to watch, unlike your ultra defensive hide-in-your-own-half approach.
Swarbs I'm not trying to be funny here but in the first leg we learnt that the way to beat these guys is contain them till the last quarter when they run out of steam and can make mistakes We tried that in second leg, didn't chase them or play their game We might have got away with it if we didn't get a man sent off, Only then did we have no chance Think about it, SAF should have
Except you didn't contain them in the first leg. Messi had a goal wrongly disallowed for offside, and missed three gilt edged chances. It could well have been 4-0 Barca by the time you scored your first goal, which was entirely Valdes' fault. You only got back into the game cos Barca switched off in the last 15 minutes, knowing that they could beat you at the Camp Nou, and their goalkeeper made a shocking error. As for containing them in the Camp Nou, you utterly failed there as well. All you did was give them all the possession, and allow them to completely dominate you whilst you tried in vain to protect your lead. Given that we didn't have a lead to protect, it would have been pointless of us to try the same thing - how could we hope to win the game if we did what Arsenal did and created no chances? Play for 0-0 over 120 minutes against Barca? Yeah, right! The RVP sending off was harsh, but only levelled the bad decisions after the Messi goal that was wrongly disallowed at the Emirates. You can't claim one bad decision decided the tie, when the only reason you had any chance at all was a bad decision in the first leg.
Do Man Utd feel embarrassed after last night, I'm not having a go because I was supporting you last night and actually was rather annoyed when Barca scored but I feel you keep using the excuse that you lost to 'the best team in the world' which yes they are, but then aren't you ashamed how far off your team is. You were made to look very poor and this showed you aren't really that good on an international scale. It was strange watching Man Utd being made to look like a small team powerless to their opponents. People keep saying 'well they had Xavi, Iniesta and Messi who you can't stop' then surely Man U need to get better players in the summer so they can compete which is what they didn't do last night
Berbatov and Nani should of started. Both would of given us the flair and the ability to retain possession for much longer periods that hernandez and valencia who were by far the worst players on the pitch. -----------VDS-------------- FABIO---RIO---VIDIC---EVRA ---CARRICK----ANDERSON---- ----------ROONEY----------- NANI-------------------PARK ---------BERBATOV---------- If only...
I'm not proud of the performance, but at least we came out and had a go. It's either that or sit back and give Barca two thirds of the pitch, create no clear cut chances, and pray that they don't pick you apart. Ultimately if Barca are on top form they will always make you look very poor. They did it to Arsenal in the Camp Nou, Real Madrid in the Bernabeu and Camp Nou, and us at Wembley. We do need to buy new players in the summer, and all our fans have been saying that for ages. But there honestly aren't any players around that I think can truly match the Barca midfield - they already have the best three players in the world. All we or anyone else can do is hope that Barca's midfield trio don't hit top form when we play them next.
Swarbs....I completely disagree, SAF has been a tactical genius for us over the years, you say about Mourhino, but didn't his side get absolutely tonked 5-0 when they tried to attack, so he got his tactics completely wrong aswell! SAF played 451/433 in Rome and it didn't work, so he had to try something different, the only way we could have had a sniff, is if we had parked the bus like Chelsea did, and I'm not even sure that would work against them now, as I believe they've improved even more since 09, and can you imagine the abuse SAF would have recieved by the world media, had he parked the bus and tried to hang on for pens
Swarbs, my points is that whatever happened in the first leg, lucky or not, we learnt something, and we then approached the second leg the way we did And we were unlucky not to sneak a win had RVP stayed on because they would have gotten tired toward the end
In all fairness to defries, arsenal did come a lot closer to beating them/knocking them out than we were, disallowed messi goal or not They were a bendtner one on one from it and were more guilty of shooting themselves in the foot rather thab the brilliance of barca ie fabregas backheel
good point about a tactical assistant, auld Carlos had United playing good footy till he went. As for the arsenal reference, missed chances incompetent officials contributed greatly to that win yet the arsenal fans fail to see that. Fergie has managed the same club in hte same league for how long, so in that time his tactical skill for the premiership should be spot on and usually is, but lets face it, the staff on the pitch were not good enough and badly organised, it was a failure from every angle conceivable, no stick, just there is no silver lining. Barca were great, probably the best I have seen em play, but that is another matter, all you can do is give it a crack and that was a pathetic offering and that is why Platini was sitting there bored
We need to buy new players for the league and to compete with City et al but as for Barca, only delusional Arsenal fans believe they can beat them. Barca are simply too good. We could sign Ronaldo, Fabregas, Tevez and Sneidjer and Bastien S, Di Mari and Ozil and we still would not beat them. They simply are too good.
I've honestly never seen Barca get tired towards the end of a game. If anything it's always the other way round - their opponents get tired after chasing the ball all game when they play like they did on Sunday. At the Emirates they didn't tire, they got overconfident and their keeper made a shocking error when they thought they had the game wrapped up. Had RVP stayed on the pitch at the Camp Nou then yes, you may have secured the draw and knocked them out on aggregate. But there's a big difference between trying to contain a team in the away leg, and trying to do the same in the final. Had Utd approached the final in the same way Arsenal approached the second leg, we would have been gambling on a lucky goal like the Busquest own goal and praying for Barca not to take the chances they were bound to create. Which is simply not the Utd way and never has been.
