United On Fire

Manchester United v Roma (Champions League, Group F, Old Trafford 19:45)

There has been a couple of amazing results in the Premiership recently; Portsmouth beating Reading 7-4 and then last night Spurs coming from 4-1 down to draw 4-4 and get a point and probably saved Martin Jol his job. But neither of them really come close to a 7-1 result in the Champions League quarter finals.

Of course, we lost the first leg of that game 2-1 and in the group stages a 7-1 win doesn’t really mean much more than a 2-1 win; just 3 points. And Roma will; must be more cautious and defend better. However, there is a lot of talk about revenge from the Roma camp and this might make them too willing to attack and United are excellent on the counter, so there may be a few goals to come by.

United have multiple defensive problems, with Van Der Saar definitely out and Brown and Vidic doubts, but then Roma have defenders Christian Panucci and Marco Cassetti out as well. They also lost 4-1 to Inter on Sunday, not the best preperation for a trip to Old Trafford. Brown would be replaced by O’Shea but Vidic’s replacement would probably Pique, who whilst being a target for a loan deal back to Zaragoza didn’t do well against Coventry in the Carling Cup. I hope at least one of Brown or Vidic makes it.

With Hargreaves available, it will be interesting to see who replaces him (He will surely start if only because of the problems in defence). Carrick (average in the league overall but fantastic against Chelsea and in the 7-1 against Roma), Scholes (missed the 7-1 because of getting sent off against Roma in the 1st leg) or Tevez (dropped for the last Champions League game, starting to come good in the league). Maybe both Carrick and Tevez and Saha gets his first start of the season with Rooney on the left and Giggs behind Saha in a mirror of the formation in the 7-1 game. It is almost like there are too many options.

It was never this hard in 1994 (my favourite Fergie team); Keane, Ince, Giggs, Kanchelskis, Hughes, Cantona. Barring injury and (ahem, Eric) suspension that team picked itself — but not in Europe where the foreigners rule meant that Fergie had to do bizarre things like dropping Schmechiel to play Mark Hughes (considered a foreigner for coming from Wales). That resulted in a 4-0 defeat to Barcelona. So, in one paragraph I’ve changed my mind. In Europe it always has been hard to pick the team.

Popularity: 12% [?]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 2nd, 2007 at 11:55 am and is filed under Champions League, Manchester United, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.