Manchester United 1 Lille 0 (Agg 2-0)
Much as I had predicted United made hard work of getting through to the quarter finals of the Champions League when it should have been much easier. The team is worryingly off form, yet have won five games in a row. Once again it was the skill and pace of Cristiano Ronaldo that won the game for them, a fast run past the fullback and a perfect cross to Henrik Larsson. Larsson made the header look easy but it was the finish of a great goalscorer and a great end to his cameo Old Trafford role this season.
United had a few early chances, O’Shea’s crossbar bound effort in particular, to finish the contest in the first half, but none were taken and Lille grew in confidence and caused United’s defence some concerns if never actually making a clear cut chance. In the end, Lille never truly threatened for all their good work.
United played the annoying 4-3-3 formation with just Larsson up from and Rooney and Ronaldo in the wide positions. This meant that United had an extra central midfielder, O’Shea, whose job it seemed was to protect the hapless Silvestre. What has Heinze done wrong to mean that the rubbish French bloke is picked ahead of him? Silvestre dislocated his shoulder in the dying moments of the game, which rather like the loss of Fletcher is probably for the good of the team.
In the other Champions League games, Bayern beat Real Madrid, with Roy Makaay scoring the quickest goal in Champions League history, after a woeful error by Roberto Carlos. Celtic hung on until extra time before Milan beat them. From the bit I saw Celtic were absolutely knackered, and but Milan weren’t much better. Finally Arsenal threw it all away, and despite having nearly one million chances in the game, had to rely on an own goal to put the ball in the net. Alex, the own goalscorer, promptly made up for his error and scored at the other end putting the Arse out for another year. To make matters worse, Henry came up, clearly unfit and got himself even more injured. Not that it matters as they don’t have much left to play for.
So, United, Liverpool and Chelsea stutter on to the next round. What are the odds on Liverpool v Chelsea again ?
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