The Franchise wrote:Oh and I must say im a a little worried about RVP. I have a feeling he has that bad habit of missing chances in important games. I hope im wrong.

Meh. He had 3 chances - not that much really. 1 of 3 on the post. I feel he did allright. Just saw a interview with him, he felt he had to score that rebound. Agree with that.

Ozil went wide. He was on the right and left.

The Franchise wrote:

Yohan Modric wrote:Nah we weren't narrow imo.

Coentrao and Arbeloa were attacking down the flanks and we put a lot of crosses in.

Natural width, you have none.

Watch the game

Cristiano was playing like the striker he is, Di Maria came inside switching with Ozil who didnt go wide either.

Man Utd defended their box easier because the fullbacks never got 2 v 1'ed.

After Modric came in RM did some between the lines. Before that everything went trough the flanks.

I've never seen a ref stop the match like that with a play still to go. Have u guys ever seen that before?

Collblanc wrote:

The Franchise wrote:Oh and I must say im a a little worried about RVP. I have a feeling he has that bad habit of missing chances in important games. I hope im wrong.

Meh. He had 3 chances - not that much really. 1 of 3 on the post. I feel he did allright. Just saw a interview with him, he felt he had to score that rebound. Agree with that.

I felt this before this game honestly, against us he gave me that impression too. As I said, its just a feeling, I hope im wrong.

The Franchise wrote:Oh and I must say im a a little worried about RVP. I have a feeling he has that bad habit of missing chances in important games. I hope im wrong.

Wouldn't surprise me his record at CL level is worse than Ibra's.....

I think if they are to go far in this competition then Roonay will have to contribute.

But no natural width though. Di maria spent most of the game in the middle. Ronaldo played CF majority of the game while Benzema had to play LW.

Ferguson completely outwitted Mourinho.

Played a narrow and compact 4-2-3-1 with Jones closely marking Ronaldo's incoming runs from the wing along with shoring up the midfield very nicely. Carrick was largely anonymous but kept the United midfield ticking with some simple metronomic passes. Kept this dual pivot deep in order to quickly transition to the wide areas of necessary. Roonay was poor and ineffective in attack but understandable given he had a sacrificial role reminiscent to E'to vs Bayern in the 2010 CL final. It worked to counter press Khedira while Xabi had no room to operate due to the compact nature except for the increasingly wide Di Maria. Ronaldo scored but was due to some poor marking and as a whole was shackled, marshalled and harassed by marshalled by Evans. Rafael has a very poor game by his recent standards as he could not cope with the threats out wide and looked even worse in positioning when going central to combine the already narrow nature of United.

As a whole United kept deep enough to nullify Real's ineffective counter-attacks whilst using RvP to draw out most of the CBs to create room for Welbeck's surging runs which worked very well.

Typical Mourinho responded like the coward he is by making rather negative changes to simply nullify stalemate the game by the end with some puzzling changes.

Not a masterclass by any means, but a very composed and insightful game plan by SAF.

Johnny Evans United MOTM by a distance. Better CB than Vidic.

The Franchise wrote:

Yohan Modric wrote:Nah we weren't narrow imo.

Coentrao and Arbeloa were attacking down the flanks and we put a lot of crosses in.

Natural width, you have none.

Watch the game

Cristiano was playing like the striker he is, Di Maria came inside switching with Ozil who didnt go wide either.

Man Utd defended their box easier because the fullbacks never got 2 v 1'ed.

that was the plan of fergie, stuff the middle. He knows us very well, he knows we dont use the wings that much and it showed, whenever they would be camping, there wasnt much threat wide, so they were comfortable enough staying put. and of course, lack of imagination in the final third did us in the last stretch of the game when we enjoyed long run of possession.

The Franchise wrote:I think Sir Alex made a mistake in playing Rooney in that half defensive right side role.

Valencia could of done that just as easily and Rooney could of played in Kagawa's position.

Thats a good point Kagawa was silent for most of the game, and Rooney was wasted the wing just kept sending long balls to rvp

We need to get benz and higs more involved and stop passing to ron on every play

barca 2011 wrote:I've never seen a ref stop the match like that with a play still to go. Have u guys ever seen that before?

I have and I find it incredible.

The rule book doesnt say you have to stop it when the time is up, the ball was not in play every second of the 3 minutes anyway.

If that was Barca, I would be furious..especially considering how weak Madrid are at set pieces.

Rebaño Sagrado wrote:

The Franchise wrote:I think Sir Alex made a mistake in playing Rooney in that half defensive right side role.

Valencia could of done that just as easily and Rooney could of played in Kagawa's position.

Thats a good point Kagawa was silent for most of the game, and Rooney was wasted the wing just kept sending long balls to rvp

Kagawa's main task in the first half to me seemed to be to run past RVP, he did that to win the corner and he almost got on another one too.

But in the end, I think they lost something doing it.

Utd didn't stuff he middle lol, we kept two up top at all times. We played twin in the middle and that was that.

Actually we use the wings a lot against other sides. We cross a lot. Tonight our final third play was kinda different.

The Franchise wrote:

barca 2011 wrote:I've never seen a ref stop the match like that with a play still to go. Have u guys ever seen that before?

I have and I find it incredible.

The rule book doesnt say you have to stop it when the time is up, the ball was not in play every second of the 3 minutes anyway.

If that was Barca, I would be furious..especially considering how weak Madrid are at set pieces.

but refs always favour United, how is this possible

ref was a complete joke all game, most bias crap i've ever seen

Why didn't Cleverly play? I think him would have been better than either Carrick or Jones.

Red card for Ramos forgiven.
Red card for Varane forgiven.
Not letting kick the corner.
Very home refering.


Rafael flop of the match, with Evra (Y u no jump!). De Gea top.

Respect to both teams. That was a good game. We played the typical away performance in that we sat back, soaked up RM's posession then hit them with the fast break. Especially in the 2nd half, we were much better and had one or 2 chances to win it. Overall, I think a draw was the fair result.

chad4401 wrote:We need to get benz and higs more involved and stop passing to ron on every play

they were both poor anyway, and we werent passing to ron on every play. Benzema got some nice touches in the 1st half but was poor overall.

it just comes down to the same shit teams do vs us and get away with a result, they stop our counters, and we look half as good.

Fergie mugged Mourinho tactically, although his own offensive output was nothing good. He was away so nothing wrong being cautious and he is the one going away with a positive result tonight.

We will beat them at old trafford, but man utd played well tactically.

Rafael was in ultra rape me mode. Especially in the first half.

Good result for United, however, we could have nicked it.

De Gea (9) - was absolutely fantastic - saved us time and time again. One cross in the first half he should have done better with. (9)

Rafael (5) - as i've said before very erratic defender, how he almost always finds himself on the wrong side of his man (even when he's on the goal side) is a mystery to me. Very poor - not up to it. Why Mourinho didn't keep Ronaldo on the wing and get the ball to him and Rafael on a yellow.

Evans (8.5) - Soild as a rock, I was very impressed with his performance.

Ferdinand (7.5) - like wish Rio was excellent.

Evra (7) - had a good game tonight, once in the first half he failed to get back when Real counter attacked.

Jones (7.5) - very solid and powerful throughout

Carrick (8.0) - i'm not a mad fan of Carrick - but by god was he solid tonight - I thought he was fantastic.

Welbeck (8.5) - Welbeck was outstanding - United's most creative player and he also worked his socks off. Fantastic header for the goal.

Rooney (6.5) - worked hard, got caught flat-footed at times.

Kagawa (6) - good on the ball at times but created little.

RVP (7) - hit the cross bar, great shot in the 93rd minute, should have finished that golden opportunity. Worked hard and was good on the ball. He had to come deep all to often.

Giggs - (6) why did that chance fall to him??? 23 years at the top and he still has no right foot - it outrages me...pathetic.

The Franchise wrote:I think Sir Alex made a mistake in playing Rooney in that half defensive right side role.

Valencia could of done that just as easily and Rooney could of played in Kagawa's position.

I felt because of that he didnt get involved enough and when he did get it he looked bad, most players do when they have touches so infrequently.

Good defensive job, but I felt in attack he didnt do too great because Man Utd were very narrow.

Madrid were very narrow too for much of the game also.

Playing Kagawa was a mistake. Would have been better to play Valencia and Rooney left or AM with Welbeck left. Not fan of Welbeck, but he scored the goal.

The Franchise wrote:I think Sir Alex made a mistake in playing Rooney in that half defensive right side role.

Valencia could of done that just as easily and Rooney could of played in Kagawa's position.

Think fergie was expecting rooney to slip a through ball down the channels along with the defensive work. But with Coentrao playing a really good game, it didn't work out that well.

Mr Nick09 wrote:

chad4401 wrote:We need to get benz and higs more involved and stop passing to ron on every play

they were both poor anyway, and we werent passing to ron on every play. Benzema got some nice touches in the 1st half but was poor overall.

it just comes down to the same shit teams do vs us and get away with a result, they stop our counters, and we look half as good.

Fergie mugged Mourinho tactically, although his own offensive output was nothing good. He was away so nothing wrong being cautious and he is the one going away with a positive result tonight.

We will beat them at old trafford, but man utd played well tactically.

If we are to beat them then we need one of the two sharp we can't just rely on Ron for scoring

Why doesn't Ozil shoot? At one stage in the second half Ronaldo played him in on the left side. He had a great chance to hit it first time. WTF?

TheRedStag wrote:Why doesn't Ozil shoot? At one stage in the second half Ronaldo played him in on the left side. He had a great chance to hit it first time. WTF?

TBH he's crap in shooting the ball.. We'll get a better chance to score with a blind pass from him.