UEFA Champions League/Europa League 8/9/10 April *** Spoilers ***

[drunkenmaster]

Wasn't expecting Barca to go out. Is the spanish league getting a third big player now? Atletico seem to be doing well domestically too.

Atletico have every chance of winning it if they keep going, Barca vs Atletico final game of the season. Was a draw in the league game at Atletico so if they win at Barca they win the head to head. They already lead the head to head vs Real so they've got a ridiculously good chance.

In terms of a bit 3, tv money/revenue/wages are still a massive difference and won't change any time soon. 300mil low revenue, 72 vs 195 vs 220mil euro's in wages for Atletico vs Barca vs Real.

As with Dortmund, the biggest clubs will likely pick off the best players and encourage the best players to leave looking for higher wages. I expect Courtois, Costa, Koke, basically at least a 1/3 of the team to be leaving over the next couple years regardless of if they win. It's a huge shame but then have to see how well Simeone does(or the next guy) with picking replacements. Dortmund are weaker than they were but have bought good new players like the strikers whose name I'm not even going pretend I know how to spell, he's been very good this season.

 

[Robbo]

Oh please don't say that

We'll see what happens, the Glazers aren't going to be pleased.

I'm surprised we managed to stay in the tie as long as we did, but it wasn't some sort of tactical excellence from Moyes. He just had everyone sat back and kept hoofing it long to Rooney or Welbeck, and the former shouldn't have even been playing.

Bayern were pretty awful, Barca would have been horrible to watch as well if it wasn't for Messi being so good.

 

[sandy10]

Loving all the clowns on social media saying

"We're true fans and we'll support United through thick and thin..."

Thin? thin? thin isn't finishing 6th and spending £70m on players in a season!......





Sheesh!

 

[FrankJH]

Wasn't expecting Barca to go out. Is the spanish league getting a third big player now? Atletico seem to be doing well domestically too.

No disrespect to AM, who are a brilliant team, but ££££ count , and Real / Barca share a vast majority of the tv rights.

The problem AM will have in the medium / long term is keeping their manager and their players from being poached by more widely recognised clubs.

Obviously if AM can win the CL this season, its easier to persaude everyone to stay another season at least (and fantastic for them) - even IF Barca arent allowed to strengthen in the summer , RM definitely will (and with a huge signing as well probably).

I really hope they manage to hang on to La Liga at the very least but having the Barca game as the last of the season must be a nightmare

I'm surprised we managed to stay in the tie as long as we did, but it wasn't some sort of tactical excellence from Moyes. He just had everyone sat back and kept hoofing it long to Rooney or Welbeck, and the former shouldn't have even been playing.
.

To be fair with Utd's current very weak midfield, no decent wingers to speak of and one aged full back and the other not fit - Im not sure Moyes had any other choice.

Maybe even Barca would have struggled to pass the ball all the way through Bayern's central midfleld , let alone anyone else.

It wasnt pretty, but it was never going to be given teh players available. As stated above , at least Moyes / Woodward appear to be focusing on attracting the right level of player in the summer.

Thin? thin? thin isn't finishing 6th and spending £70m on players in a season!.....!

Well done for completely ignoring the fact that 1/2 that amount was spent in Jan when the club was already in 7th place and the damage (for this season) had already been done.

Its not the losing against Liverpool / City recently that has done the damage it was the silly dropped points against lower opposition much earlier in the season

 

[sandy10]

Well done for completely ignoring the fact that 1/2 that amount was spent in Jan when the club was already in 7th place and the damage (for this season) had already been done.

Its not the losing against Liverpool / City recently that has done the damage it was the silly dropped points against lower opposition much earlier in the season

Ah forgive me, with Mata in the side in August it would all of been so different.

 

[FrankJH]

Ah forgive me, with Mata in the side in August it would all of been so different.

1stly he wouldnt have been cuptied so could have made a difference in a lot of different competitions & 2ndly it wouldnt have mattered so much that RvP missed a lot of the early season (even without thinking about Mata's fitness probably being a lot better from not warming the bench for 6 months)

It was alos you who wanted to make such a big point about how much Utd have spent this season

 

[manic111]

This was my personal highlight of last night.

 

[J-FRO]

"They are a top quality side. That is the level you need to get to if you want to achieve success in the Champions League. People are saying we are miles off. I don't think we are. It is small margins in big games. They are the defending champions. We have a lot of quality in our squad. We have shown that at times. We can play at this level and we can compete." -Darren Fletcher

What?!?

 

[Shamikebab]

In the end though, all those possession stats (and wild long shots) are meaningless. Sure it would be great if we could play that kind of football but in the end we were not too far off beating them despite those stats. We were about even on good chances (Rooney having 2/3 chances that he might have done better with when fully fit)

 

[Purdy]

Looks like he has aged a bit

 

[sandy10]

1stly he wouldnt have been cuptied so could have made a difference in a lot of different competitions & 2ndly it wouldnt have mattered so much that RvP missed a lot of the early season (even without thinking about Mata's fitness probably being a lot better from not warming the bench for 6 months)

It was alos you who wanted to make such a big point about how much Utd have spent this season

Haha - prioritising the FA and League Cups now? or did you mean the Salford and District indoor 5 a side trophy?

 

[elmuzzy66.]

thought he had eyebrows? Anyways may his rein continue. Actually feel sorry for the guy as his career could be destroyed if things don't pick up.

 

[drunkenmaster]

In the end though, all those possession stats (and wild long shots) are meaningless. Sure it would be great if we could play that kind of football but in the end we were not too far off beating them despite those stats. We were about even on good chances (Rooney having 2/3 chances that he might have done better with when fully fit)

The problem being Utd didn't look or give the impression of having anything left in the tank to give. They did as best as they could defensively and on the break, and were soundly beaten. Bayern looked like they barely broke a sweat, forgot how to shoot and still won by a decent margin in the end.

Utd had little extra to give, Bayern looked like they had 3 more gears to use.

We see league 2 teams beating prem teams now and then, a one of result and being genuinely competitive are different things. Brentford might fluke a win against say Chelsea one time in 50 but the other 49 times they'd be easily beaten. Doesn't matter how close Utd might have come, I'd put money on Bayern beating them 99% of the time as the teams currently stand. Utd aren't remotely close to being good enough to compete at that level.

They looked far far better last year under Fergie but last years Utd looked no where near winning a champs league final either.

 

[FrankJH]

Haha - prioritising the FA and League Cups now? or did you mean the Salford and District indoor 5 a side trophy?

more to do with winning breeding more confidence within the team

The problem being Utd didn't look or give the impression of having anything left in the tank to give. They did as best as they could defensively and on the break, and were soundly beaten. Bayern looked like they barely broke a sweat, forgot how to shoot and still won by a decent margin in the end.

Utd had little extra to give, Bayern looked like they had 3 more gears to use.
.

They struggled to do anything meaningful for an hour but they still had 2 - 3 gears to go lol

"Soundly" beaten by two lucky deflections - yeah ok , delusional DM yet again

 

[The Running Man]

In the end though, all those possession stats (and wild long shots) are meaningless. Sure it would be great if we could play that kind of football but in the end we were not too far off beating them despite those stats. We were about even on good chances (Rooney having 2/3 chances that he might have done better with when fully fit)

In the end you can't rely on just your striker to have a top game and that your opponents will squander 23 chances.

Look at the stats. We were awful. Sure counter attacking teams xan grab a goal here or there and might have a sniff of a chance. Bayern had chances all night long.

It's obvious who's going to win looking at those stats barring a miracle.

 

[FrankJH]

23 chances? Another meaningless stat

Absolutely no chance did they have anything like that amount of good shots on goal - I suppose if you include the wild shots that ended up in the top tier, but these were just as likely to hit the moon as they were to score

 

[The Running Man]

Yea but they got in a good position to shoot and okay the shot went over. Could have deflected and gone in who knows. Loke I say yesterday, you don't shoot you don't score.

Look accept we were awful and hardly looked like the richest (or second) team in the world. We looked the poor underdog and played it exactly like that. Man for man we were simply worse. Playing style and control of the game we were awful. Long ball ahoy.

 

[MooMoo444]

thought he had eyebrows? Anyways may his rein continue. Actually feel sorry for the guy as his career could be destroyed if things don't pick up.

He made a bet with Mourinho. Whoever got knocked out of the CL first would shave their eyebrows.

 

[Shamikebab]

Bayern had chances all night long.

No they didn't

In fact I can actually only think of one outside the ones they scored and that was correctly ruled offside in the end.

Stats are mostly meaningless. All it shows is Bayern had a lot of the ball and had a lot of shots. It doesn't show how effective their passing was or how much of a chance those shots were.

 

[The Running Man]

Well presumably you keep possession by making passes. Or dribbling the ball. They did twice as much of that as we did.

How many times did robben or ribery have the ball inside our box or just outside it making our defenders fall over as they skipped merrily by?

How many times did we have bayern in the same position?

At no point could you come away from that as a neutral thinking wow man u blew the doors off and were unlucky. Unlike the last time we played em at home and were 3-1 up at half time.