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Champions League Quarter Final draw

Published by
Paul
at March 14, 2008 in Champions League. 0 Comments

You’ve got to be happy with that. Roma, with the advantage of the away game first, and avoiding another English club until the final. (Although the thought of losing to Liverpool in the final still makes me quake). Also, can chuckle at Arsenal v Liverpool meaning that they play each other three times in a row. In fact, Arsenals next seven matches include United, Chelsea and Liverpool thrice.

Chelsea going to Fenerbache will not be easy although they should win, but then they will come up against the Arse or pool in the semi. We will either get Schalke 04 (interesting name) or Barcelona. I hope that if the Spanish giants get through, they’ll still be a bit crap.

Let us not count our chickens however. Whilst we stuffed Roma last season, the results against them in the group stages were more indicative of this seasons result. We should get through, though once again I worry about the potential for crowd trouble in Rome.

Full draw


Champions League quarter-final draw:
1 Arsenal v Liverpool
2 AS Roma v Man Utd
3 Schalke 04 v FC Barcelona
4 Fenerbahce v Chelsea

Champions League semi-final draw:
1 Arsenal/Liverpool v Fenerbahce/Chelsea
2 Schalke/Barcelona v AS Roma/Man Utd

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Arsenal 5th Round Cup preview

Published by
Paul
at February 15, 2008 in Previews. 0 Comments

Due to a calendar malfunction, I’ll be away for this game.  I forgot to add the FA Cup tie dates into my diary.  I’m concentrating on the league and europe this season, ok?  Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to find a TV screen in a pub or something up in Edinburgh to watch the game.  However, the omens are not good, on my previous visit to Edinburgh on a stag do, I watched Arsenal clinch the 98 title.  Amongst others, Tony Adams scored a cracker against Everton and I knew it was all over for that season.  Might have been earlier that 98, come to think of it, but I don’t tend to remember the seasons when Arsenal won the league.  I don’t remember too much of that stag do either, but that’s another matter.

Speaking of boozing, on a completely unrelated note, honestly, it’s sad to see Bryan Robson got relieved of his duties at Sheffield United.  Captain Fantastic was once down as a future United manager, but surely his career as a manager must be over now.

FA Cup 5th round and United are at home to Arsenal.  After the last two poor performances, United get back to form otherwise the Gunners will knock us out.  Having thought about the derby defeat, aside from missing Rooney the main problem was that United had nothing at all in midfield.  Ronaldo, Nani and Giggs cannot play in the same team at the same time.  Scholes and Anderson didn’t work as a central midfield pairing.  Scholes and Carrick we know works.  Hargreaves and Anderson works.  I think Scholes and Hargreaves would work as well and that would be my first choice for the remainder of this season and long time for Anderson to replace Scholes.

Tevez needs to play alongside someone.  Dunne and Richards totally bossed him, which I don’t think would be the case if Rooney had played.  So we lost out in midfield and up front.  Oh, and our defence had a shocker too.  We were lucky it was only 2-1 in retrospect.

Let’s hope for better against Arsenal and we’ll scrape through to the 6th round and dent Arsenal’s confidence in the process.

Any other United fans have a heart attack when they read about Ronaldo being out for 9 months and possibly having a career ending injury?  I breathed a lot easier when the news sites altered the headlines to “Milan’s Ronaldo ….”

And finally, what are the copycats at Liverpool up to?  Only starting an AFC Liverpool.   Now, forgive me if I’m wrong but didn’t the Anfield mob initially welcome their American owners with open arms?  It doesn’t look good when you then say “oh, but it turns out they are shite so we’ll bugger off”.  At least FC United were opposed to Glazer from the start.  I used to own a piece of Manchester United, but the Glazers took it against my will.

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Liverpool 0 Manchester United 1

Published by
Paul
at December 16, 2007 in Reviews. 3 Comments

Liverpool 0 Manchester United 1 (Tevez 45)

Fast and furious, this big clash between Liverpool and United had few clear cut chances.  United won the game from a well worked corner that took full advantage of Liverpool’s zonal marking system.  Despite having lots of possesion in the second half, Liverpool didn’t test Edwin Van der Sar and completed another victory as the supposed “Fortress Anfield”.

In the first half, most of the trouble for United’s defence was of their own making, or rather of Van der Sar’s making.  Twice he came for balls and collided with his own player.  One particular error had Evra scrambling away a back header from Ferdinand as Var der Sar ran into the back of Vidic.

United’s goal came from a corner.  As Liverpool defence formed in zonal marking, not one of them picked up either Rooney, on the edge of the box or Tevez in front of the goalkeeper.  As Giggs made to cross the ball into the box, Ferdinand moved forward taking away for nearest player to Rooney, Torrez.  Giggs played a flat ball directly to Rooney who took a first time shot at goal.  Carrigher, seeing the danger had come out to meet Rooney, but the ball went through his outstretched legs and towards the corner.   The ball would probably have been cleared off the line by the man on the far post, but Tevez stepped across and clipped the ball into the net.

Once United had taken the lead, the central midfielders, Hargreaves and Anderson formed a protective shield in front on the defence and Liverpool didn’t get a look in.  It might have been negative minded, but United fans up and down the country won’t mind a bit.  It was like watching a boy being held at arms length by a stronger and bigger boy.  No matter how the small boy tried to land a punch, he couldn’t get near.

Anderson, in particular, was impressive today.  Supposedly a creative, attacking midfield, he was strong in the challenge and tackle and more than held his own against the opposition midfield, particular with some robust tackles from Stevie Gerrard.  All the players had good games with the exception of Ronaldo.  Not his usual self, he avoided the big game again and ended up as centre forward, perhaps because he wasn’t tracking Riise back properly.  The ever willing Rooney swapped to the right and shored this hole up.

In the day’s other big game, Arsenal beat Chelsea so United are still 2nd, one point behind, but not there is a small but significant gap between second and third.  With Liverpool having to go to Old Trafford, Stanford Bridge and the Emirates and being 10 points off the lead, is their challenge for the title in real trouble?  All I know is that United are very strongly placed coming into the tricky Christmas period.

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Carling Cup preview and other more interesting matters

Published by
Paul
at September 26, 2007 in Manchester United. 2 Comments

Carling Cup against Coventry City – youth players and fringe benefits only. I used to enjoy the Carling Cup or whatever it was called. Back in 1983 I’ll never forget the Liverpool United final where Whiteside scored and a Milk Cup game against Oxford where a certain Mark Hughes scored. Latter days it has been the testing ground for the youth team; where Beckham, Scholes and Neville tried out the first team. Now, it is a still a youth team event, but the likelihood of any of the team being promoted to the first team have diminished given the spending power United now have.

Instead of blooding Eagles more often, United signed Nani.  Instead of giving David Jones a chance in the team, United sign Carrick and Hargreaves and ship off the youngsters to teams like Derby. So forgive for not thinking much about tonights game. Apparently Rooney wants to play. When doesn’t he?

More interesting is the continuing implosion at Chelsea. There is an interesting article in the Telegraph comparing the Chelsea owner Abramovich with the Glazers

At Old Trafford, however, the balance of power really is something new. Here the owner’s priority is not football, it’s money. The Glazers know nothing about the game, have no interest in how it’s played, frankly wouldn’t be aware of 4-4-2 unless that was the percentage figure on their debt repayment. As long as success is putting bums on seats, they don’t care how it comes.

I never thought I’d say this, but the Glazers did get some things right. They knew enough (or knew they knew nothing) about football to leave everything as it was from Fergie upwards and left them to it, even keeping David Gill in charge despite him being a critic of the takeover. Their lack of interest carries on far enough to let Solskjaer become a coach despite him publically backing and supporting Shareholders United. Imagine that happening at Chelsea?

What happens at Chelsea are things like the old manager taking all the scouting reports with him when he leaves; which is pure spite on Mourhino’s part and unlikely to have been an act caused by “mutual consent”. Mind you, if John Terry and Avram Grant had stabbed me in the back, I’d not want to help them do anything.

What also happens at Chelsea is that they install unlicensed managers in charge which United have opposed. I find this a bit odd and did when the other clubs opposed Gareth Southgate becoming manager. If the opposition has a rubbish manager, wouldn’t you want to let them keep him? Of course, unlicensed != rubbish and we’ll have to wait and see on that count.

In other opposition news, Arsenal march on and Liverpool shoot themselves in the foot by “resting” Torrez for 2 league matches where they drop 4 points and playing him in last nights Carling Cup game against Reading. Presumably, he’ll have to have a rest again after than on Saturday and Liverpool will drop more points, but at least they are through to the 4th round of this important trophy, eh?

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