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Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

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    #26
    Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

    I thought Pleat's "Barcelona haven't so much as forced a corner" five minutes after they, er, took a corner (and the graphic showed Man U had only had two themselves) was good.

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      #27
      Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

      Barca's full backs were particularly poor I felt.
      Barca started really well in the first 10 minutes, but as soon as Scholes scored, the game swung towards United, give or take 5 minutes before half time. Aside from Messi's shot which Van Der Sar dealt with comfortably, and Henry's header straight at the keeper, I can't recall too many chances on target- not that United had that many themselves.

      Will Gary Neville be fit enough to start in the Final? Assuming that Vidic will be back at the weekend, it would be very harsh on Wes Brown if he didn't start. He's had a very good season.

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        #28
        Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

        I actually tried to say "It's all gone a bit quiet on this thread..." at about 10 o'clock last night, until I reaslised the board was broken.

        Anyway, I'm genuinely not trying to play reverse-psychology mindgames with Fate when I say that I'm convinced it'll be a Man U - Chelsea final.

        The sickener is that in such a nightmare scenario, to the extent that I'll care at all I'll have to root for Man U.

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          #29
          Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

          Harry,

          There has been a complete lack of leadership from Rijkaard, but also a total lack of initiative from senior offensive players like Eto'o, Deco and Iniesta. Since he has been back, Messi has basically been the only one in the team capable of taking players on OR making a telling pass in the last third of the field. The others have seemingly been content with watching Leo take on five defenders yet again, at least when they aren't shooting wildly or flubbing a final pass.

          At one point last night, there was a stat on the screen that Barca had completed more than 80% of their passes, but the vast majority of those had to have been a) sidways, b) backwards, or c) in their own half, because significantly less than half of the rest were completed (and the significant majority of those came from Messi, who unfortunately cannot pass to himself (though he sometimes tries to)).

          Eto'o and Deco were huge disappointments last night, but Rijkaard is so detached from what is actually happening on the pitch that it seemed very much as if he had no idea what to do about it (bringing Henry and Bojan on at the beginning of the second half would have been a start). There has been a similar lack of any intelligent approach to either corners or (especially) free kicks ever since Ronaldinho was banished. And the fact that Yaya Toure (the least technically gifted of the midfielders by some margin) made more telling runs than Iniesta and Xavi put together is yet a further indication that the team lacks a clue.

          I've never been a big fan of Henry (especially at Barca), but as you say, he at least appeared to realise that shooting the ball on target was a necessary precondition to scoring.

          It had long been rumoured that Rijkaard is clueless tactically and that Ten Cate had always been the one figuring out how the team should play (especially when they couldn't win on sheer skill alone), and this season has been added massive amounts of circumstantial evidence in support of that theory. Neeskens appears to have only a slightly better idea of what is happening than Rijkaard, and is in any case evidently incapable of communicating it to the players.

          As I tried to say last night before realisingt that the board was broken, it was a profoundly frustrating and disappointing set of matches, but we certainly can't claim to have deserved a better result.

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            #30
            Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

            ursus arctos wrote:
            Harry,

            There has been a complete lack of leadership from Rijkaard, but also a total lack of initiative from senior offensive players like Eto'o, Deco and Iniesta.
            I think it says something about the state of the Barca squad when Iniesta, guy that's been around for 4 seasons, is considered a senior player.

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              #31
              Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

              Well, that was good wasn't it?

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                #32
                Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

                Nope, not really. And I say that as a Man Utd fan.

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                  #33
                  Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

                  Yes...it was good.

                  We played like shit against Barcelona (twice) and won.

                  Imagine if we'd played well, we would have obliterated them 10-0.

                  And I say that as the forum lunatic.

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                    #34
                    Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

                    Wooohoooo.

                    Last night I partied like it was 1999.

                    (except I had to go home to bed at 10.30)

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                      #35
                      Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

                      'Red Army Invade Moscow'

                      How cool does that sound?

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                        #36
                        Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

                        I really wish that this board would stop signing you out after 20 minutes or so. If you write something, go away to do something else for a couple of minutes, and then come back to finish your post, By the time you press reply, the computer has signed you out, and you lose whatever it was that you have written.

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                          #37
                          Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

                          That "remember me" box by the login is your friend, aiatl.

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                            #38
                            Last chance to see Man United in the 2008 CL

                            Which makes it a member of a very exclusive club!

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