Mourinho can now rest some of his star players on Saturday safe in the knowledge that he's beaten Barca convincingly in the more important of the two matches, the semi finals of the cup. If they lose with a weakened team there won't be too much of an outcry, as their focus is to win another CL asap. Personally I want us to beat Real with their full strength team, we had a great first leg and we don't need to hear all the excuses about how their players were tired... Although I don't actually care what people say as long as we go through. United - in decline since '99, and who only win tournaments/league titles when all their opponents are dire.
It's interesting to see how much trouble Mourinho is having trying to balance league and cup success at Real. He did well in the cups in his first season, then the league last season, now it looks like he's back on the cups again. Just shows how hard it is to manage Real - Mourinho along with SAF and Guardiola is one of few managers to be able to handle the CL and league simultaneously. Most of them either go for the cups or the league and set their team up accordingly. Mourinho managed it at Porto and Inter, but not at Chelsea or Real. Wonder if he'd be able to handle competing in both if he came to Utd?
although United winning a treble and a CL/PL double wasn't that impressive as we didn't have to beat anyone of substance to win any of those trophies. let's just make that clear before we start heaping too much praise on Sir Alex.
Too right, Barca, Juventus, Inter and Bayern Munich were all **** that year and the premier league was especially ****. Beating Liverpool, Arsenal and the Newcastle in the FA cup was of no consequence whatsoever. The 1999 side was lucky and, if we're all honest with ourselves, utterly bobbins. Nowhere near as good as one that finished sixth in its domestic league and defended its arse to the CL trophy. On penalties.
Guardiola find the perfect system that match Barca quality.. can he do better in other clubs which require different style of play? .. we will see next season with Bayern have to say Barca game depend on passing when having the ball and closing down when losing it.. with xavi, inesta getting older, I think this system is not working as good as before .. we seen sign of that last season and even this season facing milan, celtic ..etc
Yep. Juve and Inter were sixth and eighth in serie A that season. Juve must have been dreadful to finish sixth in their domestic league. Very negative: they only managed 42 goals too
Yet first and second the season before. You're essentially saying that you were **** last season then.
That was mostly down to Del Piero suffering a bad knee injury early in the season and Zidane being massively off form, after Ancelotti took over and Del Piero got back to full fitness things turned around for Juve, and just so you know only two teams conceded less goals than Juve in the league (and they finished 1st and 2nd by some margin) so there wasn't too much wrong defensively.... but you are right of course, we should just accept that every game United have ever won under Fergie was down to the opposition rolling over for us or refs helping us out.
All the teams that Chavski beat to win the CL (and Chavski) had one thing in common. It made it arguably the least credible victory in the history of the competition which Chavski did their best to confirm with their performances in the European Super Cup (or whatever it's called), the Club World Cup (or whatever it's called) and the Champions League. So what was the common demoninator?
Still in the cup, top of the league by miles and looking good in the CL. Bayern Munich are my only major concern in Europe outside of Madrid who we are up against next. Beat Madrid and I think number 4 might start looking increasingly likely. Actually I wouldnt write us off in terms of all 3. Only United could do it after all, everyone else is ****!
You have to bear in mind that Boro are a quality team so Chelsea are doing well to beat them. Brentford was bad enough but Boro...!
Switched it off after they scored. Hopefully Boro didn't stage a late comeback as they looked like they'll give us more of a game.
Would be funny, though I do think they'll wait til the summer, unless there league form completely collapses and they look like not getting top 4, which in all honesty is more important than the FA Cup
