UEFA Champions League Final - Manchester United vs. Barcelona

The Running Man · 29 May 2011 at 11:12

Youd think so right? Does anyone know what fergies spat with Rooney was abouts on the touchline when Ferguson was saying, ' listen to me i'm the expletive manager!'?

Shamikebab · 29 May 2011 at 11:12

I think he was telling Rooney off for roaming too much, he was dropping very deep.

DanH84 · 29 May 2011 at 11:21

Well played Barca, thumped us. I am so hungover that my gums and teeth are aching.

Robert1986 · 29 May 2011 at 11:45

Anyon watching mutv tomorrow? Bus with trophy celebration. Will be kinda akward watching it to be honest.

Bets on who will drop the CL trophy on the barca bus?

One More Solo · 29 May 2011 at 11:48

Robert1986 said:
Anyon watching mutv tomorrow? Bus with trophy celebration. Will be kinda akward watching it to be honest.

Bets on who will drop the CL trophy on the barca bus?

Why? We have nothing to be ashamed of, our season has still been better than every other club in the world, bar Barcelona of course, and made all the sweeter by being written off 9 months ago (as usual) before a ball had been kicked.

cm1179 · 29 May 2011 at 11:50

it wasn't just evra who was poor, a lot of times the united defenders stood (almost in awe) at the barcelona attack. shame for vds to go out on a game where he maybe could have done better. not sure why ferguson started giggs and carrick, he got that one very wrong.

Shamikebab · 29 May 2011 at 11:51

One More Solo said:
our season has still been better than every other club in the world, bar Barcelona of course

Porto might have something to day about that

One More Solo · 29 May 2011 at 11:52

cm1179 said:
it wasn't just evra who was poor, a lot of times the united defenders stood (almost in awe) at the barcelona attack. shame for vds to go out on a game where he maybe could have done better. not sure why ferguson started giggs and carrick, he got that one very wrong.

Not so much the defenders but the midfield were too willing to let Barca have possession in front of our box. The plan was clearly to keep them out of our area at all costs but that afforded Messi and Villa too much space between 18-25 yards.

Owenb · 29 May 2011 at 11:52

One More Solo said:
Every single time Barca were on the edge of our area Evra would get sucked in to the middle leaving Pedro/Alves completely on their own, as you saw for the first goal. It's amazing that he didn't realise this at one point in the 90 minutes and hold his position on the left.

What would you of done- doubled up on Pedro(Vidic had Pedro covered when Evra pushed out) and let Messi completely unmarked? The best way to defend those situations is not to get into them. When you have Messi, Villa and Pedro lining up on the edge of your box for a pass from Xavi, with only 3 defenders back you have screwed up some where long before that!

No matter how UTD were setup last night they would have lost. UTD were run into the ground and were unable to stay with the pace of the game. If Barca kept pushing for more goals after the third it could have been very embarrassing for UTD.

One More Solo · 29 May 2011 at 11:53

Shamikebab said:
Porto might have something to day about that

I thought of them, but the Portuguese league is shocking and the less said about the Europa League the better.

placeholder · 29 May 2011 at 11:53

I think its easy to look back and say "we should have done x,y and z" but in all honesty a team was picked to win the game and it didnt. No excuses, no tactical mistakes, no wrong team selection.

I dont see any shame whatsoever in last nights defeat.

Robert1986 · 29 May 2011 at 11:54

the papers are lapping this up big time.

Robert1986 · 29 May 2011 at 11:56

One More Solo said:
Why? We have nothing to be ashamed of, our season has still been better than every other club in the world, bar Barcelona of course, and made all the sweeter by being written off 9 months ago (as usual) before a ball had been kicked.

The bitter taste of defeat will be shown on all their faces... and will Berba even bother to show up?

One More Solo · 29 May 2011 at 11:57

Robert1986 said:
The bitter taste of defeat will be shown on all their faces... and will Berba even bother to show up?

I can't blame him to be honest, leaving him out of the squad was an utter joke. The guy carries us through the first half of the season and has made the difference in games in the second half too, yet Michael ****ing Owen gets in ahead of him. Berbatov has scored more goals in one game than season than Owen has all year.

Robert1986 · 29 May 2011 at 11:59

The reason Fergie gave for putting Owen on the bench instead of Berba is because Owen has the ability to score late goals. No idea why chico was never subbed for an extra mid-fielder and then have Rooney up on his own.

ugh.

Chong Warrior · 29 May 2011 at 12:14

Well that was one of the most one sided finals I've ever seen, truly men against boys. I think Fergie got his tactics and team selection all wrong and leaving Berbatov out of the squad was unbelievable.

Come back to the lane Dimi we'll love ya... though you'll have to share the limelight this time

biron_w · 29 May 2011 at 12:18

placeholder said:
You dont think Utd were in it before the game started?

A few people I know(even some leeds fans :eek:

) said they thought Man Utd would win but I said there's no chance they'd win. It's not that they're bad,it's just that Barca are much,much better.

FeFiDoh · 29 May 2011 at 12:33

Few points on Shamikebab, you say no one marking Messi.
For a start he has a license to play where ever the hell he feels like it appears, do you man mark him for the entire game? Who would you put on him? Leaving someone following him ALL the time leaves holes for the others to play in to.

Also you can't close them down for the full 90 minutes, look at how United started. They were like a grey hound out of the traps, that is not doable for 90 minutes. It uses so much energy that when you do get the ball you are going to be exhausted.

A mistake to play Hernandez? Maybe maybe not. It's all well and good saying "should have had Berbatov he can hold the ball up and lay it off".
You never had the ball to give it to him. Playing Hernandez the idea should have been keep it really tight and hit them on the counter, did not do this well at all. Even when united got the ball and hoofed it forwards the pass was stray, so even with Berbatov the ball wasn't reachimg him in the first place.

DanH84 · 29 May 2011 at 12:36

well at least we know exactly what we need to improve this summer.

FeFiDoh · 29 May 2011 at 12:37

You also said Giggs didn't close down enough...

777 - Total number of passes that Barcelona made in the final, more than double Manchester United's 357. Barca had 69% of overall ball possession.

148 - Passes that Spanish midfielder Xavi completed during the game, a high for the Champions League this season. He misplaced only seven, giving him a completion rate of 95%.

90 - Percentage of passes completed by the Barcelona team. United's was 80%.

60 - Passes between Xavi and Andres Iniesta, the most common pass journey on the pitch. United's most frequent combination was between defender Rio Ferdinand and Nemanja Vidic (16).

55 - Number of times Xavi and Iniesta passed to Messi.

18 - Passes made by Barcelona keeper Victor Valdes - two more than Manchester United striker Javier Hernandez.

16 - Times United fouled Barcelona's players. Barcelona did likewise to their opponents on only five occasions.

15 - Dribbles by Messi, of which 10 were successful. Wayne Rooney was the next most frequent dribbler with six.

12 - Shots on target by Barcelona. Messi and Iniesta had three of these each.

11.95 - According to Uefa, distance in kilometres covered by Xavi, the highest in the Barcelona team. Ryan Giggs covered the greatest distance by a United player (11.16km).

1 - Number of shots that Manchester United had on target. This was Rooney's 34th-minute goal.