Perhaps United needed a pep talk in the half time break...

 

 

Sooo... yeah... I'll.. I'll go get my coat..

Edited May 28, 201114 yr by Thomsen

They need a new central midfield that's for sure. They were completely average tonight. Sure Bacelona are the best team ever in modern football, but their central midfield is utterly diabolical.

I don't see how any United fan can say we weren't played off the park tonight. Before now I've never bought into this Barcelona are the greatest team ever stuff... now I do. Incredible second half they produced.

http://www.soccerclips.net/videos/barcelon...-man-utd-villa1

 

The finish on that is absolutely sublime.

Fergie tonight imo proved he is tactically inept. Barcelona are a brilliant team yes, but they are beatable. Fergie f***ed up his tactics big time. 4-4-2 was never going to work. Neither was playing Hernandez. If he'd have played Berbatov then he might have had a chance. Instead after the third goal he just sat there chewing his gum.

 

I've seen some quality Ryan Giggs jokes out about on Twitter.

Compared to the two fantastic generals on the Barca midfield Carrick really did look like an average midfielder.

^Lol he already is mate! He's awful.

^Lol he already is mate! He's awful.

 

Point taken.

Point taken.

 

I still can't understand why Fergie did not play Fletcher. Now I detest Man Utd, but they f***ed up No big time now. Grates on me so much how all the Man Utd fans are now saying 'no-one could have beaten Barcelona'. Bollocks. Absolute bollocks. They are beatable. Fergie is just tactically inept. He was so naive to play that high temp pressing game against Barcelona. No team on earth can play that kind of football for 90 minutes. They looked shattered by 60 minutes - imo because of what they tried to do at the beginning. I've said it before in this thread but playing 4-4-2 and having a highly average midfielder in Carrick, and a 37 year old superinjunction against Xavi-Busquets-Iniesta was just suicide.

 

I've re-watched half-heartedly watched the game. I've come to the conclusion Rooney scoring when he did was the nail in the coffin for Man Utd. I honestly think Barcelona would have been quite comfotable with their 1-0 lead, and not pressed so much for another goal like they did in the second half.

3-1 Barcelona and Barcelona won = 16pound (A)

Didn't see any of it because I was at a wedding, and really wasn't bothered missing it! I had a fiver on Sergio Biscuits to be the first player to receive physio treatment, got a nice £45 in my account now, I love betting on odd things! :lol:

I still can't understand why Fergie did not play Fletcher. Now I detest Man Utd, but they f***ed up No big time now. Grates on me so much how all the Man Utd fans are now saying 'no-one could have beaten Barcelona'. Bollocks. Absolute bollocks. They are beatable. Fergie is just tactically inept. He was so naive to play that high temp pressing game against Barcelona. No team on earth can play that kind of football for 90 minutes. They looked shattered by 60 minutes - imo because of what they tried to do at the beginning. I've said it before in this thread but playing 4-4-2 and having a highly average midfielder in Carrick, and a 37 year old superinjunction against Xavi-Busquets-Iniesta was just suicide.

 

I've re-watched half-heartedly watched the game. I've come to the conclusion Rooney scoring when he did was the nail in the coffin for Man Utd. I honestly think Barcelona would have been quite comfotable with their 1-0 lead, and not pressed so much for another goal like they did in the second half.

Yeah so tactically inept he won the title by 9 points with "the worst United side in years"

 

Fletcher would of course played if he had more game time in recent weeks but well he had to take his chance on Carrick who was just rather rubbish. The thing I was unsure of and was correct on in the end was Chica starting, he just seemed completely absent! As we didn't have Berba I was thinking of maybe even Nani behind Rooney if we weren't gonna use Owen! But no matter what anyone says the way they played no one can beat, not us, not Mourinho or anyone, Barca deserved it. I was livid after 2009 as I was disappointed in my team but this time we tried our best but we were just not good enough. Always next year, if someone else can knock them out then maybe we might stand a chance. :lol:

Yeah so tactically inept he won the title by 9 points with "the worst United side in years"

 

Fletcher would of course played if he had more game time in recent weeks but well he had to take his chance on Carrick who was just rather rubbish. The thing I was unsure of and was correct on in the end was Chica starting, he just seemed completely absent! As we didn't have Berba I was thinking of maybe even Nani behind Rooney if we weren't gonna use Owen! But no matter what anyone says the way they played no one can beat, not us, not Mourinho or anyone, Barca deserved it. I was livid after 2009 as I was disappointed in my team but this time we tried our best but we were just not good enough. Always next year, if someone else can knock them out then maybe we might stand a chance. :lol:

 

Just look at how many points Barcelona finished with compared to Manchester United. I think it was something like 16. Huge amount. Fergie is tactically inept. He's a great man manager, but his tactics often lead a lot to be desired. He's got the Premier League worked out, but a lot of teams just don't even bother trying at Old Trafford, especially when they're a goal down. How many Champions League titles has he won in the twenty odd years he's been manager? Two. Not very well for the greatest team on the earth. It's only been since Mourinho and Benitez came to the Premier League and showed modern day tactics that Fergie started doing well in Europe. Our whole country's footballing philosophy is twenty years out of date. It's why England will never win the World Cup again until something is changed at grassroutes level.

 

Fergie got his tactics wrong massively. Yeah an absolute masterstroke by him to play 4-4-2! I can't actually think of a team that's ever beaten Man Utd 4-4-2. The gulf in class between Man Utd and Barcelona was amazing. The key to stopping them is midfield. I think Fergie even said so himself He had Scholes, Fletcher and Anderson on the bench. Why did he not flood the midfield? His substitutions last night were Fabio for Nani and Carrick for Scholes. He should have seen at half time that Xavi, Busquets and Inestia were running triangles around Carrick, yet he didn't make a change. Barcelona are a great side yes, but if I was a Man Utd fan I would be asking questions about Fergie's tactics as it's a myth that Barcelona are unbeatable.

Also while we're on the subject of Barcelona, I'm getting so fed up of everyone telling me Messi is the greatest player of all time and that he single handedly destroyed us. Without Barcelona's incredible midfield, Messi would not be half the player he is.

 

To be honest, I believe that a player can't be the greatest player in the world until they come to the Premier League; the most difficult league in the world; and still do it week in week out. Could Messi survive in this country in the same way he does in Spain? I don't think so, and that for me is why Ronaldo is currently the greatest player in the world as he's proved he can do it on two stages.

 

As for the tactics of Saturday night and my Messi rant over, I actually completley agree with what Rooney's saying about the way we played. But the fact is, our squad, and our midfield in particular, is just not good enough to win the Champions League and beat a team like Barcelona. We need some serious rebuilding in the midfield before we can think about winning it again.

Actually I really disagree with you on Messi James. That lad is absolute class. He's a very very special player. The only way the Man United players could get to him was to blatantly foul him (just how it took Valencia until the 8pth minute to get booked I'll never know!). He'd tear the Premier League to pieces. He really is that good. I don't think he's the best player of all time currently, but the scary thing is he's only 23. The lad's immense. Brilliant player. Up there in the Top 10 greatest players of all time.

 

People say he's $h!t because Argentina haven't won the World Cup. Well Aregentina's defence is abysmal. If they sort that out, then I'm sure they'll have a slight chance in 2014. Even though Brazil will win.

Actually I really disagree with you on Messi James. That lad is absolute class. He's a very very special player. The only way the Man United players could get to him was to blatantly foul him (just how it took Valencia until the 8pth minute to get booked I'll never know!). He'd tear the Premier League to pieces. He really is that good. I don't think he's the best player of all time currently, but the scary thing is he's only 23. The lad's immense. Brilliant player. Up there in the Top 10 greatest players of all time.

 

People say he's $h!t because Argentina haven't won the World Cup. Well Aregentina's defence is abysmal. If they sort that out, then I'm sure they'll have a slight chance in 2014. Even though Brazil will win.

 

But Barcelona's defence isn't that incredible really? The entire squad is built around their superb midfield. Now don't get me wrong on Messi, there's no doubt he is a great player, but I still argue that I want to see him perform at the same level in the Premier League. Spain and England have two very very different leagues, and apart from the odd European game and El Classico's he's never actually challeneged.

 

Argentina may have a terrible defence, but Messi didn't score a single goal in South Africa and I strongly believe the main reason for that is because he didn't have the incredible supply of Xavi, Iniestia, Busqets and the likes. They are the ones who make nearly all his opportunities for him. In fact, I'd go as far as to say apart from the odd classic (see his second goal against Real Madrid), he can't really be given that much credit for most of his 53 goals this season. Even his goal against us was easily preventable; fuck knows who thought it was a good idea to give Messi all that space. We deserved to conceed for that.

I've always said Messi is over-rated. The amount of chances you see him miss when you watch Barca in the league is quite a lot. The amount of chances that are created for him, I think any top striker would have scored at least 40 this season in the same situation. But then I started to watch him more and realised he probably is better than anyone else is, the goals he scored in the Champions League against Arsenal and Real Madrid were so brilliant, it was unreal. That's what helps him be the best, his phenomenal control, touch and skill, his low centre of gravity, his vision, his ability to pick the right option and not be selfish, his attitude to the game and his sportsmanship. It's taken a while but I think I've now joined the Messi bandwagon, he is superb.

 

But no player is great without the players around them. If you don't have great players around you it's hard to play to your full potential, there's only so much you can do as a big fish in a small pond.

But Messi is not a striker, that's why he misses so many chances. In the games against the smaller teams he's deployed up front as a striker, and then in the bigger games he's employed as a false number 9, who comes deep to recieve the ball. Nani was at fault for Messi's 3rd goal. His first touch as a pass to Messi. The guy is absolute genius. His ball control skills are first class. I'm struggling to think of players that have better ball control skills than him. There was a moment in the first half against Man Utd when there was 3 players right next to him, and he just danced past all 3 of them and took a shot on goal. Genius. If Barcelona win the Champions League next season, he'll go down as the greatest player ever in the history books imo.

 

The only reason he might not succeed in the Premier League is because, the majority of teams in the Premier League use out-dated tactics. Still living in the past. Barcelona's style is pass and move. Arsenal is the only other team that play that sort of football all the time in the Premier League, and even then they barely ever take shots on goal. They always try and walk the ball into the next. He'd tear the Premier League apart. Just look at what Suarez has done to defenders thus far. Messi is 10x times better than him with his trickery.

 

I actually thin Barcelona's defence is brilliant as well. Abidal and Alves are two of the best modern day full-backs in the world Puyol is a brilliant centre half, and Pique is the best ball playing centre back in the world. My one criticism about their defence is absout their footballing philospohy. When they're under pressure they'll try and pass it through the defence instead if clearing the ball. They make a lot of their own problems sometimes.

SOme of the best looking players are in Barca :)

 

Xavi <3