Yeah I believe that about Arsenal too. However Man utd are by no means a poor side, and if they were what does that say about you seeing as you finished 5 places behind them? Hodgson was terrible for you but I don't think your team has the quality of a title winning side either, there is still a lot of work to be done before your team is as good as United's.
I would have to agree, if Liverpool had played against Barca, they would have won.... .... they would have won the biggest loss by a team in the history of the Eueropean/Champs league cup, something like 12 nil to Barca, would be a fair reflection on the score line.
You didn't win the Prem even before Hicks and Gillett.. City are the biggest threat now... They'll be finishing atleast second in my opinion.
We've had terrible owners and three managers in two years, so I guess to be where we are at this stage is good news, we are on hte up, we absolutely owned ye at anfield and lost 3 2 at OT and a dodgy 1 0 pen in the cup, over all over all three games Liverpool shaded it with the absolute dominance at anfield. 1v1 United are not better than Liverpool no I do want to say something. When Yernited fans say, Oh it was liverpool's cup final" when we beat you. Dont be making excuses for your teams lack of heart and determination.
Winning the league shows determination and heart... Maybe it's different for other fans. But personally, I see three points as three points. I'm just dissapointed when we lose, not because of who we lose to... Winning against Liverpool only feels good for a week if we then lose to Woves or someone in the next game... In context of the season...Games against the other 14 teams are more crucial.
Birmingham performed quite well in their recent final, doesn't mean they have the quality to beat Barca though.
BBF. I completely agree.That was Liverpool that were a complete mess from top to bottom.The ''real'' Liverpool is back.The club is stable,the togetherness is back,and we've got ambitious owners that want what we want.Some clubs benefitted from it.Well fair play to them for doing so,thats what competition is. Lets see how they get on when the Anfield machine starts flexing its muscles.Liverpool are on the rise and won't think twice about destroying anything that stands its way.
Man United fans are dreaming about Ashley Young,Luka Modric and Wesley Snjeider,However they will be left disappointed when Cornedbeef face signs a portugese tramp and a mad french 3rd division player.Thats when the ''Green and vomit'' protest will kick off.As if Spurs will take Berbadross in part exchange for Modric?
Determination?!? LMAO surely you are kidding, you say that shell of a team in the CL final has determination, real worked harder at 4 0 down than ye did at 2 1 down. Determination?!? ROFL You were sheite in the league and the others were just far worse, a bit fortunate but you make yer own luck, determination, no not for a lot of this season have united shown that and get bailed out by officials. Determination!>! Getting walked off the park by your biggest rival and not having the guts to plug on for the travelling supporters lost cause or not, teh final was again another apathetic performance stinking of self pity for the last 25 minutes Winning the league by default when all others collapse is not a demonstration of determination. Oh btw, only since the decline of the prem when teams now drop so many points against lower teams yes teams will drop more points making the head to heads less of a decider, but this is only a recent thing, before then you could not afford 3 losses and a couple of draws because che ars and united were far better then, now the head ot head is not so important because you get yer ass handed to you at least 1 by us every season now and ars n che usually do ye too, so yeah typical manc, not important when you lose em and well, losing to chelsea last year cost you the title, not important
You could have said the same about Utd - prior to 2009 we had never lost a European final and our record is still 4 wins, 2 losses. Ultimately, history goes out of the window when you play a side as good as Barca. Maybe Liverpool would have given a better account of themselves than United, maybe they would have been hammered even worse than we were. But I don't for a second think you would or could have beaten them when they were playing that well. Except your first team hasn't played our first team this year. When we played at Anfield we were without Rio, Vidic, Valencia and Park and only had Nani on for half the game. It'll be interesting to see how the next match between the two sides go, if both clubs have their first teams fully fit.
I'm not just talking about this season though, last season was very much the same - In the last few seasons we have beaten you atleast once a season, which does aggrieve me a bit as I just wish they'd show that kind of spirit throughout the whole season, but I think if we squared off the 2 first teams. Reina ~ van der Sar (Hard to decide which is better) Kelly ~ Fabio (Both rather unproven so far) Carragher < Vidic (Carragher would have been roughly the same 5 years ago, but not now) Agger > Ferdinand (When Agger is fit I think he's one of the best defenders in the league, but unfortunately he's not fit enough) Aurelio < Evra (Aurelio was again a very good LB when fit a few seasons ago) Meireles > Valencia/Nani (I am aware they play in completely different positions, but I couldn't find a proper pairing for them) Gerrard > Giggs (Obviously you'll probably disagree with this) Lucas > Carrick Kuyt > Park (Again, you'll probably disagree) Suarez > Hernandez (Suarez' skill is just prolific) Carroll ~ Rooney (on current form, neither are living up to expectation) I would say there isn't much in it when comparing Defence and Attack, both sides have a good strike force and a good defensive line. Although, the midfield is what makes the team; Lucas, Gerrard and Meireles are a better trio than Park, Fletcher and Carrick. If you really want to improve your team then sell Carrick and Fletcher and buy a quality CM.
You've still got coffee to wake up and smell. Now you're just being silly. Wrong. Ask Fergie. The present is right now and you've been banging on about the season, which is history. Yesterday is history. So you're wrong yet again. You're the one judging our future by this season, after a sale, new owners and two manager changes. We're not Newcastle and Kenny is not Sam Allardyce. Got rid of him, didn't you? 9 games, was it? "You don't know what you're doing, " you sang. Went down, didn't you? Don't know what you're doing, do you?
@Swarbs I agree, you couldn't have beaten them, partly because of the way they play but more importantly because your manager could not employ tactics that might be effective, the dutch styfled them and you gotta blame webb for letting it get nasty at times, fergie could not employ the right formation and the staff on the pitch could not play posession football, something they do every day in trainin. Fergie never gave United a chance with the way he set up. When you play two tight banks where all 11 work and close space it is very tight and although Barca are great passers htey cannot materialise on the other side of a player, congestion, you may, MAY get lucky with a 1 0 or 1 1 and pens but what you have is a contest and not what we saw on the night, better a contest unpretty as it is than to just assume the victim's role in this football panto it must have been a difficult 90 minutes for you matey, seeing what was wrong on and not being able to do anything, every time Messi received the ball in the hole with no pressure I was tempted to shout at the telly meself.. in laughter
I do disagree with a few of your comparisons, mainly cos you aren't comparing like for like or considering how players work together in a team. But I don't want to get into the whole comparing individual players, as it always ends up in a pissing contest and is particularly subjective. Re: the head to head results, I think you have beaten us four times out of the last seven meetings, with us winning three. And of those four games, I can't think of a single one when we had all our first team players playing at their best, or where the game was particularly important to us in terms of competing for honours, apart from the 4-1 at OT. Like you say, it seems that Liverpool do save some of their best performances for United, whereas for whatever reason United don't do the same. Either way, I don't think you can claim your first team is better based on the recent head to head, or on any other measure. The Dutch?!?! You do realise the Dutch played against Spain, right? And Messi isn't Spanish... They can thread passes through congested space like that tho, that's what makes them such an effective side. Xavi passed it through a gap between about four players for their first goal. You can talk and talk and talk about tactics, but in the end it is all just so much hot air - whatever tactics you play that Barca side has enough footballing intelligence to get around them. Besides which, when Arsenal played Barca at the Nou Camp they all worked and closed down space, and how much of a contest was that? At least we got a shot on target! Not really, no. I just watched the game. I never expected us to win it, and it was obvious from watching the performances of Xavi, Iniesta and Messi that there was nothing any team could have done to stop them.
The Dutch?!?! You do realise the Dutch played against Spain, right? And Messi isn't Spanish... Apart from Messi, which is a big big player for barca, I think he meant the style of play, multiple Barca players, that sort of comparison, style and how they want to play. Basically what will happen to stop Messi soon, and it will be sad is what used to happen to Pele. Kick the life out of him. I hope it doesn't come to that but I wouldn't put it past players and managers in the future. In terms of space if you deploy it right, Inter Milan last year, it can work. Need some luck and crazy defending but it does work. Or to get a rise out of you, just like the Swiss did to Spain.
It was working for us though. You can talk all you like about Messi having a goal disallowed in the 1st leg but in Barcelona we were going through until RvP got sent off and they could afford to put a lot more pressure on us. And even then we were still only a Bendtner miss-controll away from going through! I don't want to make it seem like I think we definitely would have won but our tactics were a lot better than you are portraying them to be.
"If you ask me if I am one of the best strikers in the world, I say yes"- This Bendtner? The sooner you get rid of him the better. This quote was classic, it followed some strange story about how he misses skiing.
