Ultimate Guide to Beating Real Madrid at Old Trafford

This post might be long and I'm hoping that it might stir up a good conversation

First things first. We were quite lucky against Real Madrid at the Bernabeu. (However. I was still extremely proud of our boys for holding on.) Our defense was giving Ronaldo, di Maria, Ozil etc... to much space to create a chance or shoot the ball, our midfield was lacking control, our finishing could've been better. Much better. There were so many "What-if's" after I saw this match. Such as "What if van Persie finished that shot." or "What if Giggs just blasted that home." However, there was one good thing I got from this match. de Gea was amazing and I think this gave him a huge boost. Going back to your rival's stadium might be a little difficult but he handled the pressure amazingly and got some amazing saves along the way.
All in all however, I was pleased with thee scoreline and we move on.
United will meet Real again on March 5th for the second leg. Here are the list of things United must keep in tact for each position in the match against Real and some pointers.
1) Away goals - We can't. We absolutely can't concede 1+ goals in this match or at least die-trying unless our strikers make up for it. We could be 2 goals up but a single goal could dent our hopes in getting into the quarter-finals.Remember what happened against Bayern in 2010. Will never forget that day....
2) Defending - Vidic didn't play in the match against Real Madrid but he's probably come back in the 2nd leg. Although playing very few matches, Vidic seemed pretty solid with his defending so I think we can count on him.
3) Midfield - Our passing was quite horrendous in the match. The misplaced passes eventually led up to them putting extreme amounts of pressure on us, giving them too many chances. Also, I think that Rooney shouldn't be playing a centre midfielder-esque role. He's not that agile as he was when he was young. He should be receiving the balls and had several cracks at the goal. I think Rooney got almost no shots in that match.
4) Attacking - If our finishing was more lethal, we could have possibly gotten a win but that was the same story foor both Real Madrid and United. I'm just hoping that we can take our chances and make the best of them. We had so many good chances to score but we just didn't finish. Hope we show our lethal-touch at OT.

So that's been my "Ultimate Guide" to beating Real Madrid. What are your opinions on what we should focus on before the match to ensure a victory?

I believe that Ferguson won't tell his players to attack like he did in 2010 against Bayern.He learned this lesson and now he knows that we can't beat Real Madrid if we try to use positional attacking as our weapon.

It's obvious that we will be more courageous than we've been at Bernabeu, but this doesn't mean that we will pounce over them at Old Trafford.

I'll come back with a preview in a few days, but at the moment I don't have the necessary time to write it.

5) Have De Gea turn on his beast mode :3