Champions League Draw – Round of 16

Order of preference:

1.) Moyles United
2.) Dortmund
3.) Atletico
3.) Farca
5.) PSG
6.) Bayern
7.) Madrid

I'd rather play PSG than any Spainish team but i'd agree.

Of PSG and Barca, I honestly see PSG as the stronger opponent.

And it's PSG.

Barcelona v Atletico Madrid
Real Madrid v Borussia Dortmund
Paris St-Germain v Chelsea
Manchester United v Bayern Munich

Not the best draw we could have gotten but by far not the worst. Our firepower next to theirs is a daunting comparison, though. Tantamount to a putting a Ferrari 458 next to a Hot Wheels VW Beetle. Think they're slight, if not considerable, favourites because of it, but don't doubt TSO will have sommat up his sleeve to combat the sizable disparity, as has been the case all season.

I also see the big sides in Bayern, Real and Farca alllll managed to avoid each other in the quarters, all but assuring as massive a semis as possible. #whatacoincidence #not

I think you're overrating them a bit, they are basically Ibra, Cavani and TS. Their midfield is decent, hardly better than ours, their defence is much worse than ours and they only have two CF's over us.

It's a winnable tie.

That being said, I'd rather us lose and focus on the EPL

#conspiracyshed

Soul wrote:#conspiracyshed

Kickster and I both concurred 2 nights ago that the draw is rigged

Kick wrote:I think you're overrating them a bit, they are basically Ibra, Cavani and TS. Their midfield is decent, hardly better than ours, their defence is much worse than ours and they only have two CF's over us.

It's a winnable tie.

That being said, I'd rather us lose and focus on the EPL

That's like saying Liverpool are basically Suarez, Sturridge and (insert random player). Yet they're nearly top of the league.


It will be a very tough tie.

Why wouldn't it be, would you rather see two of Madrid/Barca/Bayern/Chelsea in the CL final or a weaker team such as Utd/Dortmund (both on current form and with current injury list) vs Barca/Bayern/Madrid

UFEA don't want a rout in their final, they want a close match, just like the one in 2012.

Exactly

Shed wrote:

Kick wrote:I think you're overrating them a bit, they are basically Ibra, Cavani and TS. Their midfield is decent, hardly better than ours, their defence is much worse than ours and they only have two CF's over us.

It's a winnable tie.

That being said, I'd rather us lose and focus on the EPL

That's like saying Liverpool are basically Suarez, Sturridge and (insert random player). Yet they're nearly top of the league.


It will be a very tough tie.

Have you seen who plays at fullback for PSG? they're so poor.

Regardless, I don't care if we win or lose.

You were probably saying the same thing against Benfica in 2012 so we could 'focus on finishing
Top 4'

No, I knew where our focus was in 2012, I wanted us to win the thing.

It's been so long since we've won the EPL, I don't want this chance to slip.

Kick wrote:No, I knew where our focus was in 2012, I wanted us to win the thing.

Biggest lie I've ever heard on here

Our focus in 2012 was securing CL football. RDM knew he had to win the thing to get that. top 4 was almost lost by that stage.

Immediately after the Round of 16? Our priority was on trying to win the thing over League form for
Top 4?


That's ludicrous.

He's right, Top 4 was looking more and more unlikely. No one from the club said it officially but we were all hoping that winning the CL was the only option we had left

We hadn't even the fully given up on our chances of Top 4 ahead of the semis, much less right after the KO round


There is absolutely NO way you can say we had given up League performances for trying to win the entire thing right after the Napoli ties. That's asinine.

Excellent draw IMO. We avoided Madrid, Barca, Bayern who can be unplayable on their day and avoided Dortmund, Atletico who could've been tricky if understimated, PSG are as overhyped as Barca, Bayern and Madrid without being good as them. Basically their only good defender is Thiago Silva, they have a good midfield and their strength is upfront because they have Ibra and Cavani but tbh I'm not worried about them, our defense has been really solid this season and who else but Mourinho knows how to deal with Ibra? Since Matic can't play I'm expecting a similar gameplan to our match against City away with David Luiz in midfield+ Ramires+ another midfielder (Lampard this time) to help out Cahill and Terry, or at least that's what I would do for the away match. The only disadvantage that I could think of is that we'll be in the middle of a title race while they're walking the Ligue 1, but that's why we have a 24/25 players roster. Can't wait for the match   

Shed wrote:We hadn't even the fully given up on our chances of Top 4 ahead of the semis, much less right after the KO round


There is absolutely NO way you can say we had given up League performances for trying to win the entire thing right after the Napoli ties. That's asinine.

Well, I remember that we failed to win crucial matches for the top 4 against Tottenham, Newcastle and Arsenal under RDM and the main reason we didn't is because we rested a lot of players in those games in order to have them fresh in the CL (10/11 players rested in the Arsenal game ). I guess that if RDM would've secured us 4th spot, maybe a cup too he would've ended like Hiddink or like Benitez ended after him, Thanks for your work but we'd rather go for someone else next season. He needed to leave a bigger mark to be confirmed, it was crystal clear that he almost ignored the league to win the CL.

jay07 wrote:

Shed wrote:We hadn't even the fully given up on our chances of Top 4 ahead of the semis, much less right after the KO round


There is absolutely NO way you can say we had given up League performances for trying to win the entire thing right after the Napoli ties. That's asinine.

Well, I remember that we failed to win crucial matches for the top 4 against Tottenham, Newcastle and Arsenal under RDM and the main reason we didn't is because we rested a lot of players in those games in order to have them fresh in the CL (10/11 players rested in the Arsenal game ). I guess that if RDM would've secured us 4th spot, maybe a cup too he would've ended like Hiddink or like Benitez ended after him, Thanks for your work but we'd rather go for someone else next season. He needed to leave a bigger mark to be confirmed, it was crystal clear that he almost ignored the league to win the CL.

Those games were in late April/early May. I'm talking about mid-March right after the ties against Napoli. You cannot honestly say we had decided at that point that winning the entire thing with 3 more rounds still to go was more likely than qualifying via the League. It's complete revisionist history.

Yes, my bad. I meant that after the Napoli game our league results weren't as good as ours in the CL so when he actually had to make the choice between the league and the CL in those games against Tottenham/Newcastle/Arsenal RDM went all-out for the CL.