This would make very embarrassing headlines for Bayern tomorrow if things end this way.

I log in and get hit by 21 rules....seriously? lol

nateevs:
It's not impossible to get a second goal and then park the bus if we can.

Exactly what I expect Mourinho's plan to be, but it may not be so easy; trust me, Nando won't score twice tonight.

Dunno what Guardiola is thinking with this Arsenal-kinda football; way too many unnecessary touches and no creativity up front.
Flirting with the ball instead of going out there and making some determined effort to bury it.
They definitely need a change in strategy.

Nope. Valencia 55%, Rooney 45%.

Rooney was just as guilty as Valencia for losing possession too easily.

If Chicharito had to be taken off (for whatever weird reason), Welbeck woulda been a better choice than RVP.

Ibime:
Same as we saw at The Bridge, MaZaCar buzzing around behind the striker is difficult for Utd midfield to pick up.

Carrick will always be a questionable DM in ma eyes although some dudes love blaming Giggs who at the age of 40 has more energy and mobility than a younger Carrick who is always late to everything. . . like Modrics shot on Wednesday.

Thank you!
But of course, we're still gonna get a blind argument.lol

Indeed the entire team should be blamed for going complacent in 2nd half. There was no drive, no marking, and they all started moving like ill old men!
Was really annoying to watch.
Rooney could not retain possession for 1 minute; kept giving the ball away like a rookie.
Good thing he scored, else...
I don't think there was any need for the RVP-Chicharito sub. Chicharito was doing just fine, and considering RVP's form of late, it was a silly decision.
Benitez had just made MF reinforcements and Fergie makes an unnecessary striker switch.
He should have sent on a midfielder to match Chelsea in the MF battle.
The game just nose-dived after that.

Scoring wasn't really the problem; feeding the strikers was more of an issue.

And then, in addition to the unnecessary swap he takes a midfielder off for Danny.
Nothing against Welbeck, but why reduce ur midfield when you're playing an opponent with a tight MF? Skilled players for that matter. That didn't make sense.

The 2nd leg had better be better than this.

David Luiz almost gifted United a goal there.
With this kinda defending, Cech is in for a looooong evening.

I can feel JT's pain.

Cech gets deceived by the ball.
Nice, Chicharito!

Moses, Oscar, Mata, Ba. . .not bad, Benitez. MF battle will be intense.
Torres benched, as expected. Mikel and Hazard benched.

RVP not starting. . .finally, Fergie sees the light.

This match is 6.30pm naw. GMT+1

That ref was high on cheap Turkish weed, honestly.

coogar:

yes, he gets positioned in the striking role but if you see the heatmap, the floating 3 behind him advance further than him. the tactic is basically hit a long ball to torres with his back towards the goal. he holds the ball and plays a pass to the advancing runners! it's the same way spurs are using adebayor for bale, lennon and dempsey to score goals. 8 assists for a striker who does not take set-pieces? insanity!

I like your imagination .
That's not a tactic; it's the action of a striker who doesn't feel confident enough to go for goal himself, so he stalls and waits for midfielders (for God's sake!) to go ahead of him while he feeds them.
"Advancing runners" indeed. Torres is the main man meant to be advancing - that is the tactic. Feeding a midfielder once in a while is okay, but getting comfy in that imagined "role" is cowardice. Just imagine RVP doing that in every game he plays.
I mean, what striker in his right mind doesn't want goals to his name??

But let's flip the coin and assume that it is indeed a "tactic", which only means one thing. Turning an out-and-out striker, a goal poacher a la Dimitar Berbatov into some dude who waits for "a long ball to be passed to him with his back toward the goal" so he can feed it to "advancing runners" is simply an acknowledgement that this erstwhile goal poacher is now useless in front of goal.

coogar:
that's what £50m can buy him when he surrounds a striker with 3 inverted wingers and not linear ones. the passes should be ahead of torres not behind him. the wingers rarely run the ball to the bye-line like valencia and nani do. they cut in, push torres to the flanks and score!

7 goals and 8 assists? it should be 13 goals and 2 assists or 15 goals and 0 assist!

They learned to do that when time proved that Torres would only ruin their hard work in front of goal. Go figure.
The second reason for that is, they simply do not find Torres in the right goal-scoring position to be passed to.

Then again, I thought you said that was the "tactic"-play the ball behind Torres so that he can hold it then make assists for the other guys advancing ahead of him. Why are you now blaming the wingers for following the tactic?
Make up your mind, Coogar.

coogar:

this argument is redundant when people focus on goals - chelsea do not use torres as a pure striker tasked to just finish! the number of assists he generates is a testament to that. you cannot ignore his assists - 8 league assists alone from a striker. demba ba for instance hasn't copped that in any 2 seasons combined!

LOL, are you serious? Why does he get positioned as point man then when they go 4-5-1?
He is a striker, what else are you primarily supposed to focus on if not goals?

Good 'ol Abraham did not spend 50 million to have him assist. He was bought to score.
Dem Liverpool guys must have jazzed him when he left.

Figures. It's called taking one for the team...pele .

@Coogar
Ferguson has already said Giggs will not feature in Sunday's match, and Wayne is gonna start.
Why are you being so moved about this. . .did you lose a huge bet, perhaps?

LOL
Good to see that waz just a rumor.

SAF pointed out that Giggs was the best player on the pitch on Tuesday.
Am I going with Fergie or Coogar on this. . .I think Fergie has it.
The gaffer's choice of tactics turned out to be a good one. His choice of players was his prerogative and it worked well for the chosen tactic; he had a game plan which it seemed he was gonna execute in stages till the red card happened and his brain underwent a Turkish semi-freeze.
Lay off Giggs already. He didn't deny Rooney anything. Ferguson did.

coogar:
i don't even care about sunday again.
they should just win the league and forget this season already.......with that wonderful squad as ours, it's a mare we got eliminated the way we did. what a shame!!!!

Well, I care about Sunday. Two trophies are still better than one.
Besides, would be a lot of fun to beat Chelsea.

elampiro:
Babe you know soccer o. You analyze it well. I love you just 'cos of this, and you are a United fan. Lots of hugs.

I'm still growing o, but thanks .

@Emperoh
Good to be around .

dayokanu:

His lies and incompetence have been exposed too many times he is soo ashamed that he now posts as born2fuck in the sexuality section

LMAO . That's harsh.

Torres was like a water gun....wasn't even up to the level of a gun firing blanks. Sad to watch.
The overall performance was poor; Bertrand was just woeful.

I hope I see more of this on Sunday.

Superstition at best.
If Welbeck took "the Rooney role" and has a worse finishing than your dear granny, why pick on Giggs? Especially when he was faultless.

Agree to disagree, C. This is becoming old.

In other news....Chelsea lost tonight. Weak performance that made a lil' attempt at picking up near the end of the 2nd half.
They weren't organized defensively....Bertrand was a sorry story. Guess Ashley got rested for Sunday.
If our guys are on top of their game, we should nail 'em nicely.

Bucharest go one up.
Let's see how Chelsea respond to this.

Bucharest lack ideas in the final third. . .Torres is a train wreck. . .it's gonna be a loooong night.

Havilah93:

if only wishes were horses...

...Benitez would ride!

mukina2:
bucharest has been very useless, if not they would be 3- 0 up by now

Don't mind them.
Chelsea's just begging to be flogged.

Havilah93:

you wish

Wishes come true.

Very uncoordinated Chelsea. Can't string two passes together.
I hope they remain like this on Sunday.

Does Nateevs still inhabit these parts?

coogar:

those are half chances.....and that's exactly the point!
rooney would have done better with shots on target than welbeck in the same position. fergie gave madrid too much respect by having welbeck sit on alonso. madrid were tired already with the 2 classicos - without the sending off, we would have coasted without playing too well. the sending off just tipped the balance massively towards them and mourinho took full advantage!

And you know this because....your crystal ball said so, perhaps?

And FYI, you avoided answering why chances, or "half chances" (in your opinion) were created for Welbeck but mysteriously weren't created for RVP.
Welbeck must have two heads!

Or here's a thought. . .maybe RVP was simply too ill-positioned for his teammates to find. It wasn't about having Rooney on or not.
Plus, most of the time when RVP did get the ball, quoting a friend that saw the game with me..."na RVP sef dey spoil ball"

Too lethargic to bring RVP into the game but not too lethargic to feed and create chances for Danny Welbeck, right?
Does Welbeck have two heads?

The British media will forever remain sensational...papers need to be sold! I wouldn't believe anything they say without hard evidence.
Personally I'm glad RVP failed to show up on the night; shows Fergie that the man isn't invincible.

Would be suicide to let Rooney go anywhere....IF he indeed wants to go. Big IF.

How about RVP? He obviously wasn't the best option, peformed below par. How come you guys aren't saying anything about that?
Why couldn't he have come off for Rooney, especially considering that Rooney partners well with Giggs.

Welbeck did well in the 1st leg, but couldn't he have been benched so Rooney could start?
I mean, like you said, there was also no guarantee that he was gonna perform well on the night.

Why single out Ryan Giggs when there were obviously other players that Rooney possibly got sacrificed for?? Especially when he (Giggs) didn't let the team down in any way.
If it's mostly 'cos of his age and less about his performance, that, my friend, is scapegoating.

And yet they accuse Fergie of sentiment when they are guilty of the exact same thing.
A player performs well on the pitch but because of his age and because another player was dropped (which still isn't directly attributable to Giggs), he is being blamed for the team's loss. Does that even make sense?
Whatever happened to objectivity in analysis, I wonder.

And like you said, whoz to say that Rooney woulda excelled on the night? It's a case of maybes, so making accusations with such finality and certainty in such situation is just absurd.

@Coogar
Let's agree to disagree 'cos we're never gonna see eye to eye on this.

StarBoard:
Been saying same all season long, but I got labelled all sorts of names.
If we had at least one, the outcome would have been different.
Please don't mention Anderson. Please.At least not to my reading.
The closest we got to that type of player was Fletcher.

LOL. That was funny.
Hey, StarBoard. It's a faceless forum for the most part...don't take the negative *ish personal.
Your opinions are an asset to the thread.