Man United vs. Villareal

Steve_o

After the circus that was this week do Man United have the concentration necessary to go out and beat Villareal and try secure a place in the next round or will they stumble and fall?? The win at the weekend gives a sign of hope but Charlton arent exactly the toughest of oppositions...so ddo ye believe Post Roy Man United have it in them tonight to win?

Big Nelly

Forlan out so cant see Villareal winning this.....Utd with a 1-0 or 2-0 win!!

Roddy23

Should be a cracking game. Hopefully there will be no injuries, and Riquelme and Rooney line up against each other. Gonna go with Villareal tho, to win 2-1.

SteM

Villareal are missing 2 very important players in Forlan and Riquelme so I think this will hamper their chances. I can see United winning this game to be honest.

Big Nelly

SteM wrote:

Villareal are missing 2 very important players in Forlan and Riquelme so I think this will hamper their chances. I can see United winning this game to be honest.

Is Riquelme out as well??? if so I will go with 3-0...thats more or less the heart of the team gone!! Utd seem to be getting back into a bit of form at the moment!!

Roddy23

a crap, when did riquelme get injured, that rules out any sort hiccup for Utd.
Anyone got a link for his injury, have heard nothing.

SteM

From the Manchester Evening News....

'Although he bore no obvious signs of unease as he looked ahead to the visit of a Villarreal side lacking their two most potent attacking weapons in Diego Forlan and Juan Riquelme, Ferguson insists he does not relish situations as intense as the one he is facing just now.

"I am not a masochist," he smiled, then "maybe it is my upbringing", when it was pointed out he usually finishes on the plus side in periods of perceived crisis.

Ferguson certainly does not fear a fan backlash at Old Trafford, having heard his own name chanted along with that of his departed skipper at Charlton on Saturday.'

An interview with Riquelme on manutd.com mentions

An impressive display in Argentina’s recent friendly international against England had United fans worried, but injury has ruled Riquelme out of the game at Old Trafford.

http://www.manutd.com/news/fullstory.sps?iNewsid=273249&itype=466&icategoryid=120

Steve_o

I should imagine without Juan Riquelme and Diego Forlán Villareal will struggle, Man Utd 3 - 0 Villareal (Van Nistelrooy, Scholes and Rooney to Score)

The Rooster

wouldnt have worried about Forlan, but Riquelme is the hearbeat of the Villareal team and would have caused both the mdifield and defence all kinds of problems. MU to win convincingly. 3-0 sounds about right.

CorkMan

Ahh, why does Riquleme have to be out?

A Man United win so.

yop

Should take this one, it will either be a case of a good win at 2-0 or we will go back to the same crap and draw or lose!

Thanx 4 The Fish

That is some superb bet hedging there yop. If they don't win, they will draw or lose.

Steve_o

Thats the trouble with Man United there so unpredictable they beat Chelsea one week then loose 2-1 to Yeovil Town or Somethin like that...but by the grace of god they'll win tonight!!!

gracehopper

yop wrote:

Should take this one, it will either be a case of a good win at 2-0 or we will go back to the same crap and draw or lose!

Either that or the game will be called off because of icy pitches ha,ha

SteM

gracehopper wrote:

Either that or the game will be called off because of icy pitches ha,ha

You could hardly see 6 feet in front of you because of the fog in Manchester last night. Maybe the Villareal coach will get lost on the way to the ground :eek:

Steve_o

Hopefully....end up at man city ground or somethin crazy like that!!

Chucky the tree

finished 0-0.


One or two predictions a bit off.

Thanx 4 The Fish

But Yop was spot on.

zAbbo

Boring utd in europe again, imagine if Villareal were full strenth

The Muppet

The only positives from the game being Neville and Saha back from long term injury and Park looked livelywhe he came on but what was he doing with that pass across the box?

United are still in there with a shout.

Dr. Nick

Ferguson leaves the pitch to the tune of 'There's only one Keano....'

Nice,

wheres me jumpa

argh that was such a fustrating night.

at times we played some excellent football. some fine individual performances e.g. rio, oshea, rooney and i thought rvn worked very hard even if he was marked well.

we never really looked like scoring and villareal deserved a point. it all makes for a tense night in portugal. hopefully over the next few weeks we can keep morale high.

one major problem i had tonight was the ronaldo free kick taking problem. why is this man allowed to take free kicks? corner kicks? twice he pushed rooney away from the ball. i have seen rooney hit some beautiful free kicks so this is beyond me.

fergie didnt look too happy with the freekicks so hopefully a definite plan of action will be produced for set pieces in future. set pieces are letting us down recently. we dont look a threat from free kicks or corners. these are some of the few things you can be sure of getting in a game so for any team they should be well drilled both attacking them and defending them. we certainly dont look like we practice attacking them.

ShiverinEskimo

I have to disagree with your point that o'shea played well. His crossing was abysmal to be honest except for the one ball where ruud and roo were both offside but couldn't reach it anyways.

Have to say I think the prob with united right now seems to be fergusons substitution timings. I've seen it a few times recently where he brings on players who make an impact but just get put in way too late.

United were much better when park, neville (even tho he had a didgy spell), and saha came on - yet saha was subbed in the 82nd minute? Surely he should be allowed more time to settle and make an impact - especially since villa real never looked like scoring - reckon it wasn't much of a risk to get saha in earlier.

Oh, and Ronaldo - SHOT SHOOTING, PLEASE!

Nunu

What game were you watching. O'Shea was man of the match. He's a defender and he defended very well. His sense of positioning, when to come across and cover etc was spot on. He snuffed out loads of potential danger, and lent his support to attacks from left back. Contrast that with Brown who was reluctant to cross the halfway line at all.

evad_lhorg

glad to see Neville back but not Saha. he's crap and messy. rooney should have told ronaldo to fúck off. he screwed up once thats it. give someone else a go. and what was van nistellrooy thinkin takin it.... started very well but died off. fletcher shouldnt have been on. he has no pace and hes just crap.

jank

Honestly I think UTd are going to lose in Benfica....... ah bless.
It could be disasterous for them especially when they are relying on the cash to pay off their debt. Glazer & Co may be looking for a quick getaway.
They have a serious problem scoring goals in europe of late and they havent won away in europe away since...2003 if I am correct.

In other news Arsenal maintain their 100% record and top their group:)

Pepe LeFrits

jank wrote:

In other news Arsenal maintain their 100% record and top their group:)

Completely undeservedly (the result tonight at least).

jonny68

A bad nite for United,not a great game,they deserved to win but in reality they didn't really create many clear cut chances,frustrating is the word to describe it.

The pressure is on them now,they simply have to win in Benfica or theya re out.

Necronomicon

The Muppet wrote:

United are still in there with a shout.

To accomplish what, in the knock-out stages? Our record this campaign has been absolutely shocking, and I would fear an embarrassment if we got through and drew the likes of Barca.

ShiverinEskimo

Nunu wrote:

What game were you watching. O'Shea was man of the match. He's a defender and he defended very well. His sense of positioning, when to come across and cover etc was spot on. He snuffed out loads of potential danger, and lent his support to attacks from left back. Contrast that with Brown who was reluctant to cross the halfway line at all.

Maybe I was watching a different game, haha, but I just remembering being constantly let down by his crosses going in along the ground straight to the first defender. He also gave away a number of free kicks - but to be fair to him villa real went to ground very easily (as did ronaldo) under physical pressure.

Perhaps I was too caught up on all the bad points to recognise the good points - just another frustrating night made worse by the fact that I see no solution coming any time soon and I work with more liverpool heads than is humane...

wheres me jumpa

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

I have to disagree with your point that o'shea played well. His crossing was abysmal to be honest except for the one ball where ruud and roo were both offside but couldn't reach it anyways.

thats a fair point. but his performance tonight was better than i have seen in a long time. his defending was fantastic. constantly getting forward. huge improvement.

the benfica game should be no problem for a good team. if we lose it, it answers a lot of questions for us.

MisterAnarchy

To accomplish what, in the knock-out stages? Our record this campaign has been absolutely shocking, and I would fear an embarrassment if we got through and drew the likes of Barca.

well summed up.
United have been on the slide over the last 3 seasons are now in a rut that will take years to get out of.
The current team is sub standard.
Simply put the players simply arent good enough.

masterK

It's not just Ronaldo that has a problem crossing the ball, we don't have one player capable of consistently crossing the ball with quality and this has been the case for a number of years now. Gary Neville is by far the best crosser of a ball that United have, and I'm not saying he is all that good at it.

The lack of quality crosses and the inability of the midfield to create defence splitting passes is the problem with united. Time and time again they come up against teams that come to defend and they have great difficulty breaking them down.

Can anybody remember the last time a united forward was put through one on one with the goalkeeper after a defence splitting pass from a midfielder?

Guy:Incognito

wheres me jumpa wrote:

one major problem i had tonight was the ronaldo free kick taking problem. why is this man allowed to take free kicks? corner kicks? twice he pushed rooney away from the ball. i have seen rooney hit some beautiful free kicks so this is beyond me..

It was quitew funny near the end when RVN wanted to take one and had to push Ronaldo out of the way and then start his run further forward than normal because he had to stand in front of ronaldo to block him.

Guy:Incognito

jank wrote:

Honestly I think UTd are going to lose in Benfica....... ah bless.
It could be disasterous for them especially when they are relying on the cash to pay off their debt. Glazer & Co may be looking for a quick getaway.
They have a serious problem scoring goals in europe of late and they havent won away in europe away since...2003 if I am correct.

No one in the group is scoring though. They've only scored 8 goals between them. Utd are making this group look hard, but they'll beat Benfica.

On a different note, is anyone else getting frustrated watching Europeam football? the amount of diving is shocking and really turns me off watching it. I only watched bits of the game. Villareal were collapsign all over the place, although C Ronaldo was at it too.

The Rooster

jonny68 wrote:

The pressure is on them now,they simply have to win in Benfica or theya re out.

A draw will be enough if Villareal beat Lille in Spain - which is probably likely.

As has been said United will get knocked out quickly if they continue to play the way they have been, but the best thing that could happen for United would be to sneak through the group and then draw one of the big Italian or Spanish sides. That would get the focus back on on-pitch activity, would almost undoubtedly produce United's best performances of the season (as they almost always play better against top opposition), and could give them great momentum to carry forward for the rest of the season.

Draupnir

There were three glaring problems with United in that game last night.

1. Lack of experience.

Too many of United's players didnt have the right mentality needed at European level. Especially in midfield. For the first five minutes United played fantastic football but really, thats not how to win European games. Players like Ronaldo, Rooney, Smith, Fletcher. These guys need to develop more high level experience to know when to turn it on and off in these huge European games.

2. Lack of composure.

United badly missed someone in midfield (Roy Keane) or Paul Ince in his day, to put their foot on the ball and slow things down a bit when it was all getting a bit hectic. Alan Smith was invisible for large spells and when he did get the ball, his play was all very rushed and mostly lacked any real direction.

Darren Fletcher just gave the ball away far too much and ran down blind alleys all night. Scholes just looks frustrated that he has lost a yard in terms of his ability to read the game.

3. Lack of a width.

Wayne Rooney is a fantastic player, give him the ball on the edge of the centre circle and he will create things down the middle all night. However, with Ronaldo tucking in far too much and Smith, Fletcher and Scholes all playing centrally, there was no option for Rooney or Van Nistelrooy to spread it.

What ended up happening was that Villareal could bring their full backs in and let the wingers do the tracking of any United player's out wide. United's midfield and front two just kept crashing onto the Villareal defence like waves onto rocks.

When Neville and Park were wide on the right, things looked slightly better but the distribution from midfield was either too slow or too hurried. Saha also won a lot of headers, which is another option United needed. Someone to play the ball up to.

SteM

I can't believe that United are still in with a chance of winning this group! They've been so bad in qualifications so far but still have a chance to finish top, incredible.

PHB

Indeed, but I care little, once we quality.
I think when the stops are out, United win games, and I expect this to be no different.
As for people who think we'll be slaughtered in the next round against a really good team, see 2 weeks ago.

wheres me jumpa

Stekelly wrote:

It was quitew funny near the end when RVN wanted to take one and had to push Ronaldo out of the way and then start his run further forward than normal because he had to stand in front of ronaldo to block him.

i think he was trying to play a captains role and make the decision as rooney and ronaldo looked like they were to throw punches. rooney is out best free kick taker. he also hit in some good corners.

The Rooster

SteM wrote:

I can't believe that United are still in with a chance of winning this group! They've been so bad in qualifications so far but still have a chance to finish top, incredible.

No real poor team in the group, but the 4 of them have been equally mediocre. United will surely come good in the last game. Benfica will have to come at them and no doubt they'll be dangerous, but they've also got the worst defence in the group, who are bound to be more exposed than usual. With the right tactics, United should be well able to take advantage.

Steve_o

The Rooster wrote:

No real poor team in the group, but the 4 of them have been equally mediocre. United will surely come good in the last game. Benfica will have to come at them and no doubt they'll be dangerous, but they've also got the worst defence in the group, who are bound to be more exposed than usual. With the right tactics, United should be well able to take advantage.

I hope to god your right....Last night was so frustrating!!! I like the Idea of Van Nistelrooy being the new captain, I figured it'd be given to Paul Scholes!

BKtje

A shocking stat is that Scholes has never won while being captain of Manu :eek:

Steve_o

B-K-DzR wrote:

A shocking stat is that Scholes has never won while being captain of Manu :eek:

I never knew that....Thats a very bad omen alright, how many times has he captained the team?

SteM

The Rooster wrote:

No real poor team in the group, but the 4 of them have been equally mediocre. United will surely come good in the last game. Benfica will have to come at them and no doubt they'll be dangerous, but they've also got the worst defence in the group, who are bound to be more exposed than usual. With the right tactics, United should be well able to take advantage.

I'm hoping that the realisation that they've been lucky not to be knocked out by now will spur them on to a good performance. A United team in form would expect to beat Benfica but we're not a team in form.

BolBill

Another hilarious performance from Man U last night. Excluding the qualifiers, they've scored 2 goals in their last EIGHT Champions League games and one of them was Giggs poxy deflected free kick against Porto. Time to off load their only midfielder alright

Long may it continue.............

gracehopper

Poor performance last night, fergie looked lost regarding tactics, i am glad he gave Park a decent run though, We need to get rid of Fletcher, i play 5 a side with lads that are better than fletcher. and for a player of that calibre to get his game for man utd is a disgrace, Scholes as much as i like him as a player in the past is not doing enough to warrant a place in the team, Smith is a striker (all be it a striker who cant score score goals, so what is smith actually good at then??) on the upside i thought ferdinand and silvestre done quite well with what they had to deal with, they took no nonense off that clown figuroa and never looked in trouble or short on confidence, i hope Mr Gill and the glazers is willing to fling the aul check book open in January, Its breaking my heart watching utd play this badly. Of last nights team over half the team are not good enough:

Brown,O shea,Scholes, Smith, Fletcher, Ronaldo(last night was muck)

Ah!! i feel better, had to get this off my chest

TheMonster

The big plus for United is that a draw is no good to Benfica, they have to attack. United have struggled to break down teams in Europe that only set out to defend.

ShiverinEskimo

The only thing I can think of to jolt my confidence is Liverpool had to beat olympiakos by two goals to get out of the group in their last game last year and went one nil down not long in and they went on to win it!

However Stephen Gerrard did a stephen gerrard and dug them out. Roy Keane left and took his shovel with him and left alan smith with a teaspoon..

yom 1

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

However Stephen Gerrard did a stephen gerrard and dug them out. Roy Keane left and took his shovel with him and left alan smith with a teaspoon..

Definately a candidate for quote of the day.

eirebhoy

ShiverinEskimo wrote:

I have to disagree with your point that o'shea played well. His crossing was abysmal to be honest except for the one ball where ruud and roo were both offside but couldn't reach it anyways.

I was pleasantly suprised to read (everywhere) that he played well last night. Couldn't care about his crossing as he's not a left footer and we have Duff. Although, I was watching Sky Sports and that cross you mentioned was pointed out. Rooney was supposedly an inch away.