Apr 26
Chelsea v Man Utd: Preview
I had a dream yesterday. Barcelona bangs four goals against us at Old Trafford. Then we come back and keep pounding their net, scoring goals in the process — and in bucket loads. But for some reason the score still reads 4-2, or something like that. Apparently we keep scoring but we still seem short. Then I woke up briefly and checked the date on my watch, and thanked my stars that it was only a dream. And then I slumped back into bed only for that dream to continue — the same thing on loop. We keep banging in the goals and we still seem short. Then we take the lead. Only for them to go on a three goal blitz. I didn’t know the final score because it became clear that they were winning, and try as we might we didn’t manage to overhaul them. I couldn’t take it any longer: I woke up, brushed my teeth, rushed to work and calmed myself over a cup of coffee.
Moral: Dreams can be rather crap.
Oh well, hopefully Ronaldo, Rooney and co read this (I know, I am so full of myself eh?) and vow to never let such a dreadful thing happen. Ever.
Right. Now that I’ve got that off my chest let’s move on to today.
In the midst of all the talk over our goalless draw against Barcelona, we may seem to have lost the significance of today’s game. It’s alright as long as it’s just us and not the players. Today is a day where we could effectively clinch the title and concentrate fully on the game on Tuesday.
But first the pre-match talk.
The Fergie is back in form. This time his ire is directed at Sky. The reason? The blindingly familiar issue of fixture congestion. We know these are the kinds of things managers say at this stage so we’ll leave it at that without further comment. Here’s the gist, though:
“The fixture is not fair in terms of its timing. Chelsea’s game was on Tuesday so they have had four days to get themselves ready, which is a big advantage, there is no question about that. It is not fair, but what can you do? If you shake hands with the devil you can’t complain. Football did a deal with television and the game is subject to television’s control nowadays. But we are suffering because of that. Chelsea have had four days’ rest and we have had two and a half. That extra day makes a hell of a difference.”[link]
United players were allowed to bask in the Spanish sun to rejuvenate themselves for a day before flying back to the isles, so hopefully that helps the players. Perhaps it was the sun that made Ronaldo’s mood swing for a moment to blurt for the 7856th time that he’d like to one day play in Spain, after being asked for the 7855th time.
SAF also reckons the incentive of the Premier League title should be enough for the players to shrug off their tired legs. Seriously, the likes of Ronaldo, Rooney and Rio have to be machines if they manage to come out of the next five days, or so, flying!
Team news, and there is some good news. And what news can be better than the news that comes from the horse’s mouth?
Yes, iron-man is to return after shrugging off his stomach virus like it was a dead fly on his shoulder — I exaggerate, don’t I?
Anyway, on to the probable starting XI, here’s my take: Fab four and EVDS at the back. Anderson + Carrick in central midfield. Nani, Giggs and Rooney, Ronaldo upfront. I think Tevez won’t start.
About Chelsea, I’d imagine Avram Grant would consult Hank Ten Cate, Steve Clarke or whoever in charge; take their advice; and then decide on some formation of his own anyway. So we’ll see what he has to throw at us.
I hope Fergie does attack Chelsea and not them show too much respect.
Prediction: 1-0 to United. Of course, an early United goal would guarantee a rout.
Related items from Red Rants:
- Porto it is then…
- Man Utd v Stoke: Preview
- Man Utd v Everton: Preview
- Chelsea v Man Utd: Preview
- Man Utd v Spurs match thread
Tags: Manchester United News
Opti (541)
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Moscow is my heaven (272)
any word on vidic? I didnt see how he got hurt.
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And the reason I don’t want 2 see Mourinho,is because he is a passionate servant of the game we hate.If managers should be hired purely for trophies then he would do and also Fabio Capello and OT will quickly become a white elephant and we would start offering free tix just 2 fill up seat as Mourinho’s last team do
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Fuck am I pissed for obvious reasons. I was sleeping when the game was on here at 4:30am but I was recoding it only to find out when I woke up that the disk was faulty. Probably a good thing because I would have had to witness a nightmare. I cannot and refuse to believe that Chelski and that ass clown Avram Grant beat us. Honest to God I don’t know what to think of this? If ever Chelski were ripe for the picking at home, it was today. How could we lose?
I will watch the game this evening but what really gets me is that a useless and completely uncreative outfit like Chelski found a way to crack our defense for two goals. It doesn’t surprise me that we were only able to score a goal but how did we let those misfits score two when they couldn’t manage that against far inferior opposition over the past weeks.
From what I am reading we had a lot of bad luck and poor refereeing again but that once again the team lacked offensive ambition. If the latter is true again I have nothing positive or encouraging to say about Fergie and his increasingly lack of testicular fortitude. I will however wait until this evening to make my views truly felt once I have seen the game. Right now though, I am truly shocked and gutted. What has gone wrong and nobody should be that confident against our bogey team West Ham. Not when we are clearly off the rails like this.
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Jaywire I do know that teams can win playing attacking football. But the only team who did it the whole way through the Champions League in the last few years was Barcelona. Same goes for teams who got to the final playing football. I hear a few people mentioning Arsenal, but their success in that Champions league was through keeping consecutive clean sheets. Plus everyone seems to forget the match against Madrid when they played on the counter attack the whole time, and scored through Henry.
And Grognard while West Ham may be our bogey team at Upton Park, we should be confident that we will beat them at Old Trafford. We didn’t even try against them at Old Trafford and they are on bad form. And Wigan should be safe by then, so we shouldn’t have too hard a game.
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Conor-I think we have been watching different competitions.Firstly,Real Madrid won it twice in 3 years after us playing the most attacking football throughout the tournament and they didn’t play negatively coz quite frankly they can’t.Secondly,I don’t believe u should go away from home and attack recklessly but show a constant desire 2 go 4 offense.Counterattackin is actually attacking as Arsenal did in Madrid and will get u a result.Contrast that with our game on Wednesday when we travelled all the way 2 Catalunya with the sole intention of protecting VDS at the easiest ground 4 an away team 2 score
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Jaywire by recent times, I mean 2003 onwards. Around the same time Greece won the Euro’s by being defensive and a few years later the Italians did the same. It made people think the best way to be successful is make your team very hard to beat. And you don’t seem to realise our team was set up for the break with Tevez, Rooney and Park all having the energy to go on the counter attack to support Ronaldo. We just had a terrible game offensively and couldn’t string more than a few passes together as people already said.
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Allegedly anderson was injured that is why fergie pulled him out,all the games todfay are heading towards draws then we get fucked twice in a week.Crikey who’s ass do we have to kiss around here to get some good old luck .Hope this defeat gives the lads a good ol’ kick up the ass to snap them out out this free -fall.We have been horrible in our last five games(Boro,Arsenal,Blackburn,Barca,Chelsea.)Why do the lads always have to do things the hard way.
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There are rumours starting to circulate that SAF is going to retire at the end of next season. I dont know were the romours are coming from but the club saw fit last week to come out and deny that it was true. If it was true then personally I would like to see Frank Rijkaard get the job coz I think what happened at Barca this year was down to the players, not the manager
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Fred although I have so much admiration for the football that Barcelona play, Frank Rijkaard has no motivation skills whatsoever. The players may have underperformed, but it is up to the manager to get them to start performing. I heard no such rumours by the way.
Any links?
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I think Queiroz has gone too far with his rant.We as Manchester United should and i repeat should never rely on favourable decisions.We need to go up against the grain on tuesday and play like we have never played before.the time for the virtues of character and fortitude should shine out and let it be known that we are the real Championees.
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A GROUP of Manchester United players were involved in a post-match bust up with Chelsea groundstaff during a warm-down session at Stamford Bridge.
After the game, which Chelsea won 2-1, United’s Patrice Evra, Paul Scholes, John O’Shea, Gerard Pique and Gary Neville were on the pitch when they were asked to move.
The row erupted when the players refused to come off the pitch and an altercation broke out between Chelsea stewards, groundstaff and the United players
this article is on: http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_united/s/1047159_postmatch_bustup_at_chelsea
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Fred: If that is the case then it is Rijkaards fault. It is his job to root out dissention and stamp his authority on the team. If his team is lacking in motivation it his job to give it to them or replace the players at fault. And on a related note Barcelona’s problems are not just applicable to this season. You could see the problems starting to arise early last season and he failed to deal with them adequately in the summer.
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Oh please give a rest about the CL and the bloody Barcelona game. Right now that is the least of United’s problems. For the past three weeks I have written about my worst case scenario being that we would be tied by the time we played West Ham and Wigan. I wrote about how those two fixtures worried me. West Ham because they seem to have our number and Wigan away, who under Stevie Bruce are playing good and passionate football. These games are not givens. Fine, if we win next week who cares about the Wigan game, but what if we lose or draw? A win or draw for Chelsea against a tough Newcastle could put them in the drivers seat on the final day of the season at home. Could it all slip away from us, and if so, what is the reason?
First off, I have to believe in my heart of hearts that we will not only beat West Ham, we will annihilate them. With so much to play for at home, do we have the energy, passion and form to do that? I’m not so sure. From what I have read Rooney was injured again and so unfortunately was Vidic. We are falling like flies and now we have picked a time to find our worst form of the season when it most matters. Can we just turn it on next weekend and put the title race to rest? Better yet, can we do it after what I’m sure will be a titanic struggle against Barca in midweek? I honestly believe we will be Barca, especially since Fergie rested Tevez, Ronaldo and Hargreaves. He obviously and correctly decided which game mattered most to him, but I honestly am on pins and needles over the upcoming fixtures. Are we capable of losing to Barca and then also losing to West Ham after having lost to Chelsea? Possible but highly unlikely. If we did, it would mark the worst spell in Fergie’s career at United and the team’s worst collapse ever because of how much was at stake. It just can’t happen…can it?
People say this team is better than 98-99 and I for one do not believe that in the least. We are certainly a side that plays differently and has more diversity in styles of play but we are not as good because we don’t have the depth at the needed forward position that the 98-99 team had. And to be honest that is what killed us today and also hurt us deeply and forced Fergie defensive decision in Barca. If Yorke or Cole were tired or off form or injured, we had Ole and Teddy to come in and really not even skip a beat. Now we have a knackered Rooney and Tevez. If one doesn’t play we are useless. If both play, we have nobody on the bench to relieve them when things are not going well. Ronaldo has had too much of the goal scoring responsibilities dumped on his lap and whether we want to accept it or not, he is and always will be a winger or RMFer. We simply have no depth at forward and it is killing us. And yes to some of you who have bitched about this, we have no scoring punch from the center of the midfield too. Although I contend that this may not be vital, it is nice to know that when things aren’t clicking up front, a Diego, Ballack, RVDV, Gerrard, Lampard etc can snatch a goal with a moment of inspiration and skill.
No way are we better than 98-99 when we had 4 quality strikers. a Roy Keane to control the game and midfielder like Scholes who back then could score goals from and advanced attacking midfield position. We also had Becks and Giggs at a time when their form was immense and when they could turn a game with a flick of the ball. Where we weren’t as good was defense. Why? Because Ronny Jonson was not Vidic and Dennis Irwin (God love him) was not as good or as multi-dimensional as Evra. But we had Stam who was as good as either of our present two towers and we had a young and highly reliable Gary Neville. But most of all, we had Schmeichel. One of the top 5 keepers of all time. No disrespect to EVDS, but in my heart of hearts, Schmeichel would have kept the header from reaching Ballack and would have saved the penalty today. Why am I so bold with that comment? Because time after time after time he did it in the big game for us where he was always larger than life. No folks, even if we win the League as well as the CL this season, there is no way we are a better team than that legendary side. All we can boast right now is we have the World’s best player. With all the positive stuff that is written about us there is very little I can say other than without Ronaldo we would be struggling to beat out Liverpool for fourth. Without him we are nothing, and that my friends is the bottom line. The truth hurts but we need two quality strikers, a RWB and a goals coring midfielder to add depth and further diversity to our team. We are presently exhausted and don’t have the diversity and the depth in key areas to make the difference. If nobody cannot see that as plainly obvious reason for our imminent or possible collapse, may I suggest an ophthalmologist immediately.
Sorry for the negativity but this one hurt big time as well, it clearly exposed som major problems that need to be addressed and dealt with immediately and after the season ends. Anything else will be a let down and a betrayal of all the loyal supporters of this team. After all, denial is not a long river running through Egypt.
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Julio; if you think that Queiroz went to far then you must not have read SAF’s rant:
“It’s a major decision that’s cost us the game,” Sir Alex rued on MUTV.
“To give a penalty kick for that in a game of such importance, on the linesman’s say-so, is absolutely diabolical.
“Granted the ball hit his (Michael Carrick’s) hand but he couldn’t get out of the road. He didn’t lift his hands above his shoulders or above his head, and the ball was going straight to Rio Ferdinand anyway. The referee should have seen that.
“It was a major decision and if the title is going to come down to decisions like that, we’re in trouble. If we’re not getting the decisions we deserve, we’re going to have to perform really well.
“In the last few weeks we’ve been knocked out of the FA Cup after not getting a penalty kick. There should have been a clear penalty kick at Middlesbrough from Mike Riley when the Boro player dived and saved the ball. And the same linesman we had today, Glenn Turner, disallowed Wayne Rooney when he was clean through and he was five yards onside. Then last week at Blackburn, Rob Styles, who’s turned down five penalty kicks for us this season, doesn’t give one out of three.
“As for today, when Ronaldo came on he was grappled almost to the floor by Ballack (at a United corner) and it was a clear penalty kick. Then Michael Carrick went down in the same way, the referee (Alan Wiley) was right there and again he didn’t give it. The game hinged on major decisions and unfortunately they didn’t go our way.”
I don’t like blaming referee’s but he makes a good point. However this sounds like Wenger’s rant that a few fans were telling him to stfu about. Still irrelevant though since if we had played well enough today and against Boro we would have won it on our own, Blackburn was just down to pure bad luck.
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Shit seems we all feel the same way. I do think that our tacticks were fault, but please don’t touch SAF. We were unlucky too, if 1 of the goal line clearences would have went in, we all would have been happy. let me repeat smth that someone else already posted, if we can’t beat West ham and Wigan then we don’t deserve the CL. I agree with this because I don’t think 1 win in 4 is a champoinship run. We already screwed up Blackburn and Chelskie we should correct our mistackes. It will be a laughing stock if the Toad can do a double on his 1st season.
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Grognard; you can talk about whatever you want. But others here are talking about Barcelona and our match against them since they are our next opponents. Therefore we should be focusing on them rather than West Ham or Wigan. Stop trying to draw attention to yourself just because you feel like having a rant.
Show some consideration for others.
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SAF sounds like Wenger in that…
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Right now doubt and disbelief is creeping into the minds of all United players. Only a miraculous and splendid display against Barcelona will wake them up from this malaise and nightmare. Fergie field your best and let them play. I will not bitch if they come out and attack to their heart’s content and still lose. At least we can say we went down fighting like we are capable of. Right now his tactics and lack of balls is not only hurting the team, it’s devastating millions of loyal supporters who support this team not only for it’s history but because of the positive and attack oriented football they are famous for. One game in Barca was understandable and forgivable. But now you have taken it too far with negative tactics and poor squad selection against Chelsea. If the uninjured players you have cannot find a little extra energy and adrenaline to play out the remainder of this season without a day off, then I will never ever get this game. This kind of shite never happens in hockey, basketball or American football. I’m sick of seeing soccer players being treated like delicate little animals or babies that need their nap time.
We only had a maximum of five games left to play. If players cannot dig down and make it happen right now, then I suggest he mismanaged his roster much earlier in the season. Now is not the time to be doing a Rafa Benitez for Christ’s sake. Play your best. If the fail at least we can say we threw out our “A” team and it wasn’t good enough. But right now all I can say is that Fergie is outguessing and second guessing himself. For fuck sake, we just lost to Avram Grant and a team in total disarray. How can I hide the shame? All will be forgiven this week if we win two games but still, it should not have had to be so difficult. Fergie seems to be lacking that old killer instinct. Does he even throw shoes or use hairdryers on players today? Or is he afraid that players like Ronaldo will want to bolt the team for Real Madrid if he raises his voice. I’m starting to think he is losing the dressing room because the team does not look fired up with an extra gear brought on by adrenaline and fear of Fergie. Fergie needs to go OLD SCHOOL!
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Sorry Rio attempts to kick wall, misses and kicks Chelsea steward
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=562244&in_page_id=1779&ito=newsnow
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Conor that is an incredibly unfair and insensitive comment. I honestly never expected that from you. I have never been inconsiderate of others. It’s just that AT PRESENT we just lost to Chelsea. Shouldn’t we be ranting about THAT game instead? It was a fair statement, where your statement directed to me was very hurtful and surprisingly so coming from you, who I have never had any problems with in the past. You just got personal mate.
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United’s season now hangs by a single thread on one game: Barcelona. Win that, and the players will be buoyed. Lose, and I can see them slipping up against either West Ham or Wigan.
The players have let the manager down in the games against Barcelona and Chelsea. It’s as if the enormity of the occasions have got to them. They have shown both Barcelona and Chelsea way too much respect. That must change. If we lose, we lose. But for goodness’ sake let’s us lose in the United way, by taking on the opposition and showing no team undue respect.
United must do to Barcelona what Milan did to them last year. Unleash an opening 25 minutes of fury, by which time the game could be beyond Barcelona. What they cannot afford to do is play a game of chess. If so, they’ll be picked off at some point. The arithmetic is simple. I believe that Barcelona will score at least once. United must set out to score at least 2 goals. That will be tough.
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Oh Grognard, you take things to heart so much it is quite ridiculous.
It was directed at you because you were the only one telling everyone what they should be talking about, when really it is there choice. You did this earlier in the week and RR pointed that out to you. We can sit here and talk about the Chelsea match, but to tell you the truth, it bores me. I don’t like looking over matches that we lost because everyone becomes overly negative and I couldn’t be bothered with all this negativity. And don’t worry you shouldn’t expect any more ‘problems’ with me, I don’t hold grudges, they take too much effort. 
Although saying that, I don’t think my comment was overly insensitive.
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Dont know what it is this season but as a 25 year supporter Im finding our last lot of games and the performances harder and harder to stomach, any body else feel like theyve been pummelled by a heavyweight boxer after our recent results
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Fred; no can’t say I have. I prefer to savour the best moments and forget about the worst ones. I remember our 1999 season wonderfully, but I don’t remember any of the 2002,2003 or 2004 seasons.
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I’m sure it’s already been mentioned and I hate to say it, but holy shit Fergie fucked this game up. Utter, utter fuck-up. Obviously on the balance of our season he’s been more than great, but Jesus, not starting Ronaldo? Bringing off Anderson? Replacing him with O’Shea, not Tevez? Leaving Giggs on for the full 90 despite his anonymity for all but 10 mins of the game (70-80)? What the hell? Today we went out for the draw, and as happens when you do that, our negativity cost us and we lost, deservedly. The title is still ours to throw away, but on the recent evidence would you put that past us? The run-in used to be OURS. We used to win all the bloody time at the end of seasons. That was one of our greatest strengths.
To briefly address the penalty: you have to expect those to go against you away. Carrick was foolish in the extreme to not have his arms behind his body, and even to not leave it for Rio. We can have no complaints, really.
Looking ahead, to Barca, I still think we’ll win, and by the looks of things set up a final with Chelsea which we will find much harder than against Liverpool. This current squad needs to get away from all this “best ever” crap and win when it counts. And for Christ’s sake, Rooney needs to realise that when he plays up front alone he needs to be on the offside line constantly, not dropping into midfield. Pluses, though: Silvestre looked sharp, Fletcher was outstanding and Anderson had one of his best games for a while. I’m starting to think that our midfield depth is both a strength and a weakness. It gives us options but no settled team. I think we should start Fletcher, Scholes and Anderson against Barcelona, although I imagine Fletcher will not play what with his recent return from injury.
Every game now is huge, but it is looking more and more likely that we will throw it all away. I truly hope that’s not the case.
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Conor, it just must be me then, Im still enjoying the wins, but finding it harder to deal with the draws and defeats and finding it icreasingly harder to stoamach some of SAFs tactical decisions
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Fred; SAF’s line-ups have been surprising on many occasions for a few years now, I’ve grown to expect the unexpected. Saying that, I would never have expected him to rest Ronaldo in this match. And I’m sure most people are finding our recent performances and results disappointing, I have a more selective memory and just forget most of the dull matches. Which is easy because of the team we support and the football they play, for the most part.
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Fergie has been getting away with questionable selection choices. FLETCHER?? He’s been injured WHY IS HE STARTING?? Still it was quite a hard break the penalty because we had secured the draw until then. Chelsea are the luckiest motherfuckers alive! They get result that are soooo fucking improbable all season. Oh well lets see if we can get something out of this season. Maybe we need to lose everything to learn to buy players better.
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Chelsea not only needs to say “Thanks” for the side referee, they should also say “Thank” for Sir Ferguson’s great decision. Because he kept the 34 yrs old man – Giggs on the ground for 90mins. Although the lineup was not very strong, I think using Anderson should be more suitable than Giggs on the ground after the score was 1:1. Anderson skill was indeed not very good, but he was younger and could destory the possession from others. Moreover, how much advantage or benefit did Giggs provided in the past few months? He was a great player before, but not for now. This is the truth. If Sir Ferguson wants to throw the title away, he can keep using Giggs in the comming few game.
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Abu; Fletcher was our best player, that’s why he was playing. And maybe you should read this again with regards to buying players.
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Fletcher is just ok, but he is not first class. Besides, he is seldom in the field so his experience cannot be growing so fast. To be honest, many players in ManU are not first class, may be third or forth class I should say, like Brown, O’Shea, Anderson, Saha, Nani, Hargreaves, Carrick, Evra and Park. Giggs and Scholes are old and they cannot play for a full game. The worst things is although they have a many midfield players like Carrick, Anderson, Nani, Hargreave, Flether, Scholes and Giggs. None of them is the best man for midfield. The new guys for this year like Anderson and Nani are terrible. Are they really in the game? Sir Ferguson, can you buy some good players? Otherwise, you are still using the old players. But, they are really too old.
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Don’t worry, Chelsea have to play Newcastle…joking aside, I thought the team selection was good today, just a bit blunt up front to start with, Nani wasn’t inspired but it’s not easy when you don’t get that many starts.
Chelsea were good, they won a lot of headers and knockdowns…they are very physical…they have players who know how to shield the ball well and wait for others to make their runs.
I thought the team hung on well and then started to dominate in the second half, Chelsea looked quite groggy after the goal…I thought “yes , this is it we can go on and win this” just take off Rooney (hobbling like mad by now)and Giggs and bring on Tevez and Ronaldo…that way you gain in attacking threat and in defense with Tevez running at everything that moves.
But no, Rooney was left hobbling for what seemed ages and O’shea comes on instead of Anderson? Anderson is the guts and the thrust for the team right now, sure he’s not perfect(who is) but he really sets the tone.
After that the threat went and Chelsea started gaining back the momentum…Didn’t see Ronaldo after that apart from the last few minutes, not his fault though
Still love SAF though although he might have got it wrong this time…they are still in front though…
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Dimitar Berbatov
Mario Gomes
Lisandro Lopez
Klass Jan Huntelar
These are just a list of my prefered striker this summer if we do buy a striker, but there something more important than that and that is, who would replace Fergie? Now this isnt a comment based on todays match and I dont mean that we should replace him now but the time will come and sooner rather than later so who do you guys think is best suited for that position, it would surly e the biggest shoe to fill ever in all of footballing history so what do you think??
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The positive side of this fucked up game:
At least it is plain for all to see that we have got to start playing offensively again.
Or at least not settle for defence and wait for the counter.
I for one was amazed at the number of people who thought the Barcelona game was ok. What ended up in an acceptable result on Wednesday (“with a tight and disciplined performance” – which many fans thought of) could have been a complete fuck up for a single goal. Now hadn’t Carrick handballed, we would be hearing those same litanies.
Now SAF has got to throw caution to the wind and start playing attacking, flair football. The only football style suiting United really. The past month or so, people seemed to forget it.
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Barcelona have conceded the Spanish Liga after choosing to rest their stars for tonight’s match against Deportivo La Coruna. They are losing 2-0. The match has not yet ended.
Barca has rested Lionel Messi, Samuel Eto’o, Xavi Andres Iniesta and Gabriel Milito.
We are playing on two fronts unlike barca.
We need fresh players to face barca.
We just played on Wednesday(away) and then had to travel to face Chelsea(away). The players did not have time to recuperate.
We are playing on tuesday while Chelsea has an extra day rest to face liverpool.
Fergie rotated the squad, gambled and lost. He is blaming the ref so as to relieve the pressure off the players’ shoulders.
We need to stay positive. We cannot to be out of gas when facing Barca. The squad is being streched to its maximum limit.
The fact that we have only 2 recognized fit strikers in the squad, we are facing problem upfront.
Hopefully this problem will the adjusted for next season.
bring on Barca.
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Saudi red devil; now I don’t really want to get into the striker debate because it is extremely tiresome and we’ve still got a while to go until the transfer window actually opens, but why Lisandro Lopez? Have you even seen him play?
He is such a basic striker who brings nothing to the team other than physical presence. His finishing isn’t even that great either.
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Truth is our attack is too lightweight. With Ronaldo and Tevez on the bench we had two players who had scored over half our gooals this season. So it was always difficult to see where the goals were coming from. Our midfielders often won the ball but had no-one to pass to so resorted to long balls which Chelsea could easily deal with given their aerial strength.
Rooney picked up an injury, and I’m guessing Anderson did too. Tevez I guess was being rested for Barcelona….his fitness is not great. So I think a lot of Ferguson’s tactics are dictated by injury problems.
Nani was very very disappointing. Poor poor decision making. He was never going to get much change from Ashley Cole so should have passed instead of going for silly shots or trying to dribble.
We had quite a bit of possession on the flanks but no-one to cross to in the middle.
I worry that the way to beat Man U is just to shut off the centre and let them do what they want on the wings because there will never be anyone to cross to. Even when Ronaldo is running down the wings he is always looking to cut inside, which makes Man U way too predictable.
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Well, Lisandro stays in the box a lot but not too much, tall and has a nice header, which after todays match we seem to really need that kind of striker I put him in there as last option because I believe Manucho and Wellbeck will impress next season in one way or the other ho would be just back up plan if they didnt.
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We all saw what happened to liverpool when Rafa rotated his squad..They could not achieve anything and we all made mockery of them..When they have played a fixed squad in recent games they have got some good results….Why is SAF making the same mistake now? Why is he rotating the squad? He should play the same players in every game now so that they have a proper understanding of each others positions.We have been paying the price for too much rotation.The players seem confused about their roles.
Rooney sometimes plays as a lone striker,sometimmes on the wings.Ronaldo is the same..We have only a few games left and i think the players can cope.Please Fergie don’t rotate.
We have not been playing our natural game in recent times.We have been more defensive and we have tended to lose our shape in recent games.It has backfired for us.I hope Fergie decides to revert back to our attacking 4-4-2 formation in rest of the matches.Anyway we don’t have another option as we need to win all our remaining games left or we go empty-handed for the season.Play Ronaldo on the wings where he has been most succesful and rooney and tevez up front..GO UNITED.
I hate to say this but i’ve a bad feeling about our chances this season..BARCA are more than capable of winning away from home and they need only a draw.Moreover our morale will be down after the chelsea defeat..WEST HAM are our bogey team and to win away at WIGAN on that dreadful pitch on the final day under tremendous pressure is going to be a very difficult task..
Oh God if only we didn’t have this dip in form at such a crucial time of the season and top of that we have had all the referring decisions going against us.I pray that my worst fears are not realised…..
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The whole thing about West Ham having the better of us in the last few years, think about it; they beat us when Alan Curbishley first took over and had that ‘new manager rush’, then we gave up against them on the last day of the season last year. And this season they beat us because we were lazy on our set pieces. They aren’t on great form and we should beat them. And as Wigan should be safe by then we definitely have the quality to beat them.
The only reason we stopped playing football was because we were playing against two big teams and we felt the need to try and nullify their threat rather than impose ours. We will beat West Ham and Wigan and score a minimum of 4 goals in the process.
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After reading some of the comments here, I feel the need to let off some steam and rant.
Firstly, I don’t understand this bullshit about our squad being lightweight. For the last eight months or so, the media, SAF and what have you have led us supporters to believe that we have tremendous strength in depth and that we had a brilliant chance of glory on three fronts. Now that we have lost ONE game, people are crying out that we need ten new strikers and five attacking midfielders etc. Funny how these people weren’t saying that when we were winning games earlier on this season. So what is it? Do we have strength in depth or not?
One loss and people are coming out with all this negativity such as wondering whether we are going to finish the season empty handed. One bad game and ‘fans’ are talking about how ‘senile’ the mighty SAF is and even contemplating getting rid of him! FFS was he ‘senile’ when we trashed Arsenal 4-0, or beat Liverpool home and away? Talk about knee jerk reactions! To put it into perspective, if we had been won our last five games (convincingly), all the talk would have been how we would annihilate Barca, West Ham and Wigan by five, six, seven goals. I hate to say it, but certain fans are being too fickle in my opinion, too used to glory. We have NO divine right to win games and trophies, and we deservedly lost today. I for one have no complaints about the final score, or Carrick’s handball, although we were unlucky with the two goalline clearances at the death.
All I am saying is that people have to take the bad with the good. I am convinced that we will still overpower Barca (who also lost to Deportivo tonight) at home, as well as West Ham and Wigan (both of whom have nothing to play for this season) to win the title. But might I add, in order to do so, SAF needs to get out of this defensive mentality ASAP! Where did he even get it from though? We had never played in this way before this season….
Nevertheless, we are the mighty Manchester United! We mustn’t lose our heads because of this caveat. If we re-group, focus, play our BEST players in their RIGHTFUL positions and most importantly, return to our principles and ATTACK, we will still win the Double!!
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[Red-Ranter]
Mate, I sincerely hope your Barca-Manutd match nightmare doesn’t come true. Mine did today, and we lost 2-1 just as I feared. If Giggs scored, it would have totally freaked me out!
Anyway, I’m gonna go out on a limb and say that I believe we will win our next 3 matches (Barca, West Ham, Wigan). Don’t get me wrong, but a defeat like today’s was not out of the blue, rather it was due sooner or later. The problem with getting last-min draws/undeserved wins is that you’re not forced to raise your level of play and you tend to keep making the same mistakes, so you’re bound to get punished. Our last loss was at Portsmouth ( Mar 8 ) and since then we’d been on a winning streak till the Boro game. It would have been better if we lost to Boro or Bburn, cos I believe we would have been on the up from then on itself.
About the CL Final:I so badly hope that Chelsea get there along with us. It would be so perfect to get revenge for what happened today!
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Good rant Nino, I agree. Although I think that really only Grognard thinks that we don’t have strength in depth, and thats mainly because he is looking at our striking area, not the squad as a whole. That is because he focuses on the striking department a lot because that is where he feels we don’t have the Muller or Huntelaar he craves. I agree we need one more striker to make up the numbers and free up Rooney, but not two. On the subject it seems on the whole Tevez is now looked at as a future super sub, which although is a good idea, I find it quite unfair on the little hobbit because he tries so hard.
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Fully agree with Nino!
Look we are going through abit of a blip… I’m pretty sure we will come out the other side as double winners, although the Chelsea match does leave a bad taste in the mouth.
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NO antsboy it would NOT have been better if we had lost to Boro or Blackburn, because that would mean that we would be one point behind Chelski with two games left to play, meaning that THEY not us would be in the driving seat for the title and hold their destiny in their hands. Duh!!
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Also I’d just like to point out that, in the probable event that we do go on to retain our title, we should go down on bended knee and thank a certain Mr. Emile Heskey. For without his timely, unlikely intervention at the Bridge last week, we’d actually currently find ourselves two points behind the chavs and the title would be all but gone. A very scary thought now I think about it….
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Funny dream you had. Last week when we played the first leg, I had a dream before getting up to catch the game (game time over here for ECL is 3am) that Ronaldo was putting away a penalty kick (eerily similar to the one he missed at the Nou Camp) to put United up 3-2!
I was ecstatic but I woke up to find that I had overslept, it was the 82nd minute of the game and it was locked at 0-0 and Ronaldo had missed the penalty in the 3rd minute!
BUT…in my dream, United were wearing home colors. A premonition for the 2nd leg perhaps?
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[Nino]
Oh my, you state the obvious mate
What I meant is, we would never be in this position of losing today to Chelsea, because our shabby play would have improved without a doubt. Ofcourse what I say cannot be proved..so it’s just gut feeling I guess.
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Hey, Newcastle have begun to play better haven’t they? Please oh please, beat Chelsea next week for us; and I hope United don’t mess up at home. Tevez to score against his former team, at Old Trafford like last season and win us the title at home!
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Conor; I have no problem with United’s depth anywhere else but at striker, so you are correct. But honestly, am I wrong? And as for the poor little Hobbit, he’s completely useless until after the 80th minute in most games. Use him as a sub and to Hell with fairness. If he doesn’t like it he can go play for Hobbitan FC or the Brandybuck Wanderers.
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