Barcelona vs Manchester United UCL Final 2011 Topic

[Yoshie]

Exact one that played tonight.

[RaiKkoNen]

Lol at not having Berbs on the bench to come on because Little f*ck had a decent purple patch.

[JOHN DOE]

Berba absence explainedDimitar Berbatov was the victim of Sir Alex Ferguson's most difficult decision at Wembley - how to fill his bench.The Bulgarian striker was the most notable absentee from United's matchday squad for the Champions League final against Barcelona. In his post-match press conference, Sir Alex explained why Michael Owen, among others, had been selected in preference."It was a difficult decision tonight. I found picking my team easy but picking my subs I found very, very difficult," said Sir Alex.The Reds' seven substitutes were striker Owen, goalkeeper Tomasz Kuszczak, defender Chris Smalling, winger Nani and three central midfielders in Anderson, Darren Fletcher and Paul Scholes. Only Nani, for Fabio, and Scholes, replacing Antonio Valencia, came on during the 3-1 defeat.Sir Alex admitted: "I tended to overload [the bench] with midfielders because I thought that was the area that was most important in terms of the way Barcelona play and the work you need to do in that central area."I gambled by selecting only one defender to allow me to give me as many options in midfield and the wide position with Nani."So it came down to a choice between Michael Owen and Dimitar Berbatov [as the substitute striker]. My view on that was if you're looking for someone to nick a goal in the last few minutes of a game,then Owen's experience is I think why I took that decision."When asked by the same reporter whether he regretted his approach to the game, Sir Alex said:"I think we tried to play as near to the way we normally play. I think it would have been alien for us to, for example, manmark players and things like that. We tried to play our normal way as best we could. It wasn't good enough on the night and we acknowledge that."Hopefully we can step forward from here."

http://www.manutd.com/en/News-And-Features/Football-News/2011/May/sir-alex-explains-berba-absence.aspx

[Guest Awesome Kong]

Not fully fit, Fergie got gassed off the team selection every since Shalke.

what team would u have played

They should have gone 4-3-3 and modified the how to beat Arsenal handbook..

[Lieutenant]

i must concede i allowed myself to get carried away with belief well done barca

this

[Taurus]

Unlucky.

[Thun]

That was a massacre at WembleyShocked at seeing Man U get take apart like that and knowing that top Prem clubs are not anywhere near the class of Barcelona

[BATTY BOY BUM BANDIT]

Messi's goal is doing my head in. How the f*ck did that go in? Such a sh*t goal to concede./Valencia :/Park in centre mid again :/LOL @ the way we got brushed. They got too many sick guys.

[NiNES.]

pmsl at michael owen

[anelka]

Hernandez was like a headless chicken out there but credit to Fergie for going with such an attacking line-upBerbatov wudnt have done anything against Barca, wudda been hopeless, getting the ball pinched every 5 secs moaning and throwing his arms everywhere, hes been a disgrace at times this season, was awful at Anfield

[Tom]

Piers>>> He goes in.

[Tom]

Piers>>> He goes in.

[Flojo]

big game.I've said it before but tactically Ferguson gets found wanting, he had no clue what to do when sitting back and hoping to get the odd chance didn't work.Playing Barca with a midfield that is short on legs is a fail from the start. I was intrigued at 2-1 to see what he would try tactically to change the game but he just chewed on the wrigleys like the answer was in the gum.Shout out to Masch, I still love the guy and hold no hard feelings towards him for leaving.

[Tom]

Man's hands were shaking at the end, shell shocked.

[Mr Q]

For all the English pundits who always question whether messi could do it on a cold night in stoke, last night should've shown them that it doesn't f*ck*ng matter, as they shitted on the best this country has to offer. It was an absolute masterclass. Mascherano played centre back and looked comfortable on all but one occasion.Busquets is a c*nt, but he does a magnificent job. I have no words for messi. And villa's goal was beautiful. Pique is a too sick and he is 24! Smh, this team could potentially eclipse any other, ever. If they haven't already done so.Was a pleasure to watch last night. Shouts to mascherano. 5

[MetaFives]

Dup

[MetaFives]

Gary Neville: "Pique's not a natural defender"Cool.

[JOHN DOE]

iain dowie is truly one UGLY motherf*cker

[Young £]

WTF was thatEmbarrassing aint the word.. Moving like Wenger Fergie with hes 'fingers crossed' tactic, did we actually set up thinking we could win like that. And people laughed when i said the only way we would have a chance is with both the Da Silvas on the pitch. People chatting sh*t talking about "thats the best team he could of put out, they did their best" f*ck off.The starting line up was WRONG. I dont wanna sound like Harry Hindsight because i didnt post in this topic pre match, but when i saw the line up I predicted what was going to happen. Ice said it before, i cant remember what match he 1st said "gassed of Hernandez" but thats exactly what Fergie did yesterday. Got GASSED... Hernandez should of always been a substitute in this match. Fergie was possibly contemplating either the starting line up we had yesterday or Rooney up top, Park behind him and Nani or Anderson in for Hernandez. He went for the 1st one and got gassed thinking we would just be able to feed Hernandez scraps and just fingers crossed he takes one of them. I dont know why he thought Hernandez would hold the ball up better than Rooney could. But I guess it was the performances against Shalke & Chelsea that swayed him. But what he forgot and quite frankly what he should f*ck*ng know is that Barca are a completelty different animal.Rooney aint no f*ck*ng number 10, Pundits & papers can stop chatting sh*t. I dont think anyone has posted yet Fergie saying "despite Rooney scoring, i expected him to play better".. That was one of the worse positional displays from a AM i've seen. the amount of times Busquets quickly & quietly jogged past Rooney to add an extra man into play was insulting. & Rooney only realised Busquets was past him when he saw Busquets with the ball LOL! seriously... the amount of times Busquets had the ball and Rooney responded 2 seconds later like "f*ck thats my man".Someone f*ck*ng show me a team thats beaten Barcelona with 2 man in midfield. Thats so f*ck*ng basic Fergie, and from hes post match comments you can tell he needed/wanted Rooney to work harder around Busquets. But Busquets is on another planet aswell, he only needs 2 touches to get from defence to attack. You cannot play an in-experienced Rooney in that part of the pitch against a guy who is absolutely Phenomenal there, which is why it will always be Fergies fault and not Rooneys. Pep and Del Bosque will tell you Busquets is any managers dream and we can all see why? so why couldn't Fergie? The choice had to be Rooney up top with Park behind him, because although Rooney scored and it was a great move, Park would of Nullified Busquets so much more, which would of resulted in more possession and more chances for us. What does Fergie always tell us Parks plus points are, hes energy? hes tactical awareness? so why did you start Rooney there? 1 answer GASSEDAnd the thing that pisses me off the most is that IT SO f*ck*ng EVIDENTLY WASN'T WORKING AND THE GUY JUST MADE IT WORSE. So the game gets to half time now, and Fergie and the backroom staff are probably thinking yeah we're doing well here guys keep it up lol (wankers). When I was hoping and praying for Hernandez or Valencia to come off because I saw from then it wasn't going to be their game. I mean Carrick played well 1st half, I've always been one to say that Carrick needs an athletic, agile ball keeping/carrying midfielder next to him to shine (Ideally - Modric, Best That We Have - Anderson) and he needed to shine because we were playing BARCELONA (Its like they f*ck*ng forgot at times). So after watching Giggs & Carrick struggle 1st Half with Barca, I'll use the word struggle because it was still 1-1, im tryna wonder what they could of been thinking when they moved Giggs over to the left and Park into the centre. Remember when we moved Park into the centre during the game against Arsenal? What happened, he didn't track hes man and Ramsey scored. Replace Ramsey with Messi and thats what happened yesterday. Im not upset at Park, he tried & did what he was told. Changing your Midfield against Barca in a game like that was always asking for trouble, but I would just like to know why he did it. At 1st I thought maybe he could see Giggs just getting tired n bypassed in midfield & fading out of the game so he opted for the busier Park. But Giggs finished the whole 90? So that says to me it was tactical, which then was again another big big mistake.You cant be making all these mistakes in the final. We deservedly got punished for it aswell... I mean for the past 2/3 weeks we've heard "We're not going to make the same mistakes" "We been working on shapes and positions for 300 hrs" "The players are fresh now" "Its going to be different this time" And Fergie just came and made some of the worst decisions hes made in his life. Not even gonna get into the Owen Berbatov debate. Wouldnt be surprised if Dimi leaves now... THE SUBS.. THE f*ck*ng SUBSCan someone also show me a manager of a losing team in a Champions League Final that didnt use all 3 subs. And the 2 he did use? Nani for Fabio. I'll reserve judgement on this untill we find out whether Fabio was injured.. If he wasnt, Boy. Scholes for Carrick?? WTF was that going to do, it was such a pointless sub when the game was screaming for Anderson. When you lose a final of this magnitude there should be no cries that the manager made costly mistakes, it should be the players. But the Man United backroom staff & manager didnt help us at all last night for the 2nd time in 3 years f*ck*ng embarrasing, and to be clear im only talking about the 90 mins I witnessed yesterday.Take nothing away from Barcelona, they are the best team in the world, and you have to treat them as such. If you played Barcelona 100 times and just tried to beat them playing your own teams way you will lose a lot more games then if you played to a system to stop them. Forget applauding us for how we set up, this will be killing Fergie right now and hes a major part of the blame.The only good thing to come from this is that Fergie cannot let 19 blind him now, the team needs shaking up and the midfield area needs to be addressed carefully. I can look forward to hopefully a good summer of business from our club..

[JOHN DOE]

fergie out?nigga i be playin'

[FANTA]

alot of sh*t talking on hereno matter the team, tactics or players Barca would have wonbefore the season started some people were questioning whether United would finish in the top 4so it should be no surprise that they fell short against one of if not the best team in the world!

[Young £]

no matter the team, tactics or players Barca would have won

f*ck off

[FANTA]

did that Swiss Rambler bloke do a tactical analysis of Inter beating Barca?would be interesting to see how that match panned out stats wise.

[Michel Kane]