UEFA Champions League/Europa League 15/16/17 March *** Spoilers ***

fair enough I must have misread the first half score re Bayern/Inter

I have a horrid feeling Utd will get Real again (and yet again they will win on away goals)

Wouldnt mind Chelsea v Barca , just to see the West Londoners reduced to awful they are currently

Would like Spurs to go further but not if Utd draw them at this stage :D

Shalke v Shaktar anyone? Wouldnt be surprised
 
DanH84 said:
we were ok to be fair, just lacked a killer bite to finish them off early on. The central midfield did pretty well overall but just lacked a little bit supporting in the final 3rd.
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Thought Scholes legs kind of told - a few years ago he would have been that player in the final 1/3 to put the killer pass to a striker/ score the goal - he is positioned so deep now it doesnt work

Personally thought Marseille wouldnt have had a shot on goal with Vidic playing instead of Brown - they barely deserved a goal imo (Im the first to admit Utd arent great at the moment, but Marseille got away with a **** of a lot tonight)

I love Scholes as a Utd player, but the team desperately need a (much) younger AM to replace him. If we are to get four players in the summer (in priority) - GK , AM, Left winger, (and controversially as Utd - or England - cant rely on Rio) . None of Brown, OShea , or JEvans can be relied upon to be a solid & reliable replacement for Smalling and /or Vidic imo.

edit - Inter are beatable imo, I just sincerely hope Utd dont get Barca or Real (I would love it if they met each other though), and 2ndly hope Spurs dont get drawn either of the Spanish sides either.
 
Spurs could run them close I feel, they defended superbly against AC Milan, they would need to repeat that and have a bit of luck.
 
cm1179 said:
spurs have indeed come on massively in the competition. remember our game against young boys? ouch!
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Yeah I remember, I think they were written off by a lot after that, I myself thought they'd be out at the first sign of a half decent team, they certainly proved a few wrong, they seem to have learnt how to play in the CL, your always going to come under pressure at times so keep the defense tight and take your chances when you get them
 
FrankJH said:
fair enough I must have misread the first half score re Bayern/Inter

I have a horrid feeling Utd will get Real again (and yet again they will win on away goals)

Wouldnt mind Chelsea v Barca , just to see the West Londoners reduced to awful they are currently

Would like Spurs to go further but not if Utd draw them at this stage :D

Shalke v Shaktar anyone? Wouldnt be surprised
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Real won 6-5 on agg, not away goals.

Shakhtar would be the kind draw for United, although I wouldn't mind Spurs to be honest. We always teach them a lesson.

Barca would be a hard test of course, more so because of our weakness in central midfield. It would be great if Barca and Real draw each other (assuming Real progress) and they also have to play each other again in the league and the copa del ray final. Would be awesome as a spectacle.

If we don't get Spurs, then I hope Inter or Chelsea do. Damn, so many interesting ties could develop I don't know which I want the most. :D
 
Shakhtar are really good, not an easy game there. Barca will obviously win the competition, be interesting how much they beat everybody by I suppose
 
What annoys me is this, people keep saying, UTD keep winning but they arent playing their best.

Well you know what, maybe this is our best? Maybe we cant do much better with the team we have? We win through usually 3-4 key individuals who can turn something out of nothing. Rooney is in bad form, but scored an outrageous overhead vs City.

Other times Nani has run the game for us, or Berbatov hit inspired form early on in the season.

I mean, despite having scholes and Carrick (our 2 best CMs?) in the central midfield yesterday (incase anyone says its a cop out as we played 7 defenders vs arsenal) and yet the amount of times that we simply had to hoist the ball 70 yards long just to get out of trouble on numerous occasions was quite pitiful to watch, to say the least.

We were literally clinging on at times, against what was really a second rate french side. At home, at the mighty OT.

I know we now have some pace up front but how often did Smalling, or Rafael have to simply punt the ball up in the air and hope for the best? When good teams are winning, they play possession football against weaker opponents, you know, pass, move, keep the ball...Man Utds tactic seems to be, punt the ball up the field and pray that it takes more than 30 seconds to come back, and then repeat the motion! i just cant understand it.
 
The Running Man said:
What annoys me is this, people keep saying, UTD keep winning but they arent playing their best.

Well you know what, maybe this is our best? Maybe we cant do much better with the team we have? We win through usually 3-4 key individuals who can turn something out of nothing. Rooney is in bad form, but scored an outrageous overhead vs City.

Other times Nani has run the game for us, or Berbatov hit inspired form early on in the season.

I mean, despite having scholes and Carrick (our 2 best CMs?) in the central midfield yesterday (incase anyone says its a cop out as we played 7 defenders vs arsenal) and yet the amount of times that we simply had to hoist the ball 70 yards long just to get out of trouble on numerous occasions was quite pitiful to watch, to say the least.

We were literally clinging on at times, against what was really a second rate french side. At home, at the mighty OT.

I know we now have some pace up front but how often did Smalling, or Rafael have to simply punt the ball up in the air and hope for the best? When good teams are winning, they play possession football against weaker opponents, you know, pass, move, keep the ball...Man Utds tactic seems to be, punt the ball up the field and pray that it takes more than 30 seconds to come back, and then repeat the motion! i just cant understand it.
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We must have watched a different game, we looked well in control up until the last 15 minutes when they were piling on the pressure.

By that point we had conceded an own goal and they were back into it, the problem was we had no height, hence all the balls being pumped into the box, now I don't know if you know this but Ferdinand and Vidic would have eaten those balls for breakfast, our 3rd (very young) and possible 5th (not played a first team game let alone in the centre) struggled to deal with them.

Losing O'Shea's height was the worst thing that happened.

We did well with what we had on the pitch, I actually thought Scholes and Carrick kept the ball really well last night when they needed to.

You could see the game plan was to hit Hernandez quickly at every opportunity, you can't do that with 90 odd passes and hope that they don't get back in time.

Ask Arsenal.
 
It depends what sort of passes they are. Know why defenders end up with such high pass completions? Because there is little risk and little reward. If all Carrick does is get the ball from one of the DC's and stick it back to the other DC, wide to an unmarked full back or 3m to Scholes then of course he's going to have a high pass rating. The lack of assists this season by Carrick speaks volumes in that regard.
 
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