So, after another very poor European performance from Man Utd people are using Bilbao's victory as evidence that La Liga is superior to the Premier League. Why is Chelsea thumping the 3rd best team in Spain Valencia (who also finished bottom of their Champions League group) being completely overlooked? Because it doesn't suit people's arguements? When Ajax won at Old Trafford I didn't see many people trying to claim that the Dutch league is superior. Yes Bilbao played well last night but we were awful, as we have been all season in Europe. One match does not prove that one league is better than the other.
Having a few bad games in Europe does not mean La Liga is a better league does it. UTD are 2 players short of a decent team, also SAF did not play his full team from the off.
I think alot of the claims are actually satirical twisting of the general attitude whenever a spanish team gets beaten that the EPL must be far superior. This happens on a continual basis but surely you cant have it both ways can you
Pointless trying to decide what league is "better" based on a single game. Blackburn also beat Utd 3-2 at home, does that mean Blackburn are better than Spurs, Arsenal, Chelsea and Liverpool? Besides which, since October Bilbao have had the third best form in La Liga. So they are plenty capable of beating any team they come up against on the day.
There is an error in my original post. It was Villarreal who finished bottom of their group without a single point. Valencia finished 3rd in their group. My point still stands though.
I knew this thread would appear, also not surprised it was you Berb. Unitd cannot compete against a team that can retain the football in midfield like this lot, if they were ruthless it could have been 5 or 6. There are not toomany teams that can knock it about like that and they had a 2 2 draw with Barca in one of Barca's toughest games this year. Bilboa also worked so hard last night, I am really impressed by their work rate compared to Uniteds, Rafael at the end lookin on as the 3rd went in!
Pretty insoluble argument. It is however worth remembering that Atletico Madrid won the Uefa Cup/Europa League in 2010 and finished 9th in La Liga that season,toppling Liverpool en route.Seville also won the competition in 2006 and finished 5th in their top tier that season. The league in Spain is more than a two team division,contrary to many contentions propagated on here. At the moment it is relatively easy to formulate an evidence based opinion that La Liga is the better of the two "Premierships". That might well change if Chelsea win the CL and Utd win 2-0 in San Mames.Such is football. This thread is going nowhere btw.
We played awful nothing to do with there how well there retained the ball. We would have losed to a league 2 team the way we played last night.
You answered the question yourself. Very defensive of your United team which happens to be the worst in over a decade regardless of league standards.
Agree with all this but United have always struggled v the big two Spanish sides bar 2008 when Barca finished 20 points behind Real.
Man United beat Arsenal, Arsenal beat Milan, Milan drew with Barca. Ergo, Man United are as good as Barcelona
Merely responding to those who use a single result as evidence that La Liga is superior. Bilbao kept the ball very well and dominated midfield (the weakest area of our team). Our performances this season in Europe have been simply pathetic. I don't buy that we have suddenly gone from a side who have reached 3 Champions League finals in 4 seasons to a side not good enough to compete in Europe (that's just bullshit from the wums), but we have massively underperformed.
It helps that we didn't have a recognised central midfielder on until Carrick came on. And only after 10 mins or so when Anderson had a chance to bed in the game did our midfield show (albeit little) authority. We are probably the only big English club that plays without a defensive minded midfielder, and definately the only club that starts matches without a central midfielder full stop. City have de Jong as the closing down man, Barry as a deep playmaker. Chelsea have the likes of Essien and Mikel that play defensively sometimes, even employ the likes of Ramieres and Merieles deeper. Arsenal have the likes of Song and Coquielan. Liverpool have Lucas, Spearing, even Gerrard has played defensively against us. How many teams in the world don't have a defensive mid that generally closes opponents down quickly. We haven't had that since 2009 when Hargreaves wasn't injured. Carrick is a defensive minded player in that he often stays deep but he isn't a defensive mid. Jones has never played as a defensive mid, often when he's been in midfield he plays as a box to box midfielder. Something I've noticed in Europe is that one pass often biscets all our midfield, so might suggest that players don't know their roles properly. Another thing is that we just do not take our chances. It's just have been generally a very subdued European performance this season. I said at the very start of the season that we will have very few clean sheets at home especially and that's from watching one game with Anderson and Cleverely in midfield. Take nothing away from Bilbao, they were like Barcelona 2, small wonder Guardiola said their game vs Bilbao was their hardest this season.
