Champions League Quarter Finals Leg 2

Raskolnikov

Valencia are utter rubbish, au revoir.

Little-Devil

A Jay*s i was looking forward to extra time. Chelsea deserve it in fairness. I still fancy l'pool to beat them.

PHB

I love football

At least one team in the final, with the way United played, could well be an all English final.

United vs. Chelsea in the FA Cup, CL, and then in the 2nd last match in the premiership. Could be incredible

dr.bollocko

Chelsea through, last whistle went.
After THAT save Canizares must be sickened.
Chelsea deserved the win. but it really sticks in my throat trying to say that.

Zapp Brannigan

Knew Chelsea would win, they always win in the last few minutes. Annoying really. Guess pool have a hard job ahead of them over the 2 legs.

gandalf

Well played by United. Was glad to see Roma humiliated. Now make sure you take Chelsea out of everything LOL

eirebhoy

I think Doni made his first save in injury time.

Raskolnikov

I can't see it not being an all-English final to be honest. AC Milan are only a shadow of the team they used to be and Bayern aren't any better.

joe316

fair play to ya bill, go on stick it to the idiots

Little-Devil

PHB wrote:

I love football

At least one team in the final, with the way United played, could well be an all English final.

United vs. Chelsea in the FA Cup, CL, and then in the 2nd last match in the premiership. Could be incredible

lol..yes could be classic, but i wouldn't be able for all that.

Chong

Lads I would love the Chelsea Vs Man U final, but in my heart and soul I want the Pool Vs Man U.

daveg

What a performance from United. Everyone played out of their skins. Except Richardson.

mike65

Oh dear this is bad for Liverpool, it has to be a 12-0 win tomorrow to top this

Mike.

Running Bing

I hate Man U and absolutely despise that liitle sh1t Ronaldo but it is hilarious watching the RTE panel trying their best to try and make out they were right and Ronaldo is overrated.

chump

Babybing wrote:

I hate Man U and absolutely despise that liitle sh1t Ronaldo but it is hilarious watching the RTE panel trying their best to try and make out they were right and Ronaldo is overrated.

wehweh. It's hilarious. A bit of humility on their parts is needed - wave the white flag

smemon

world class.

Best all-round performance i've ever seen from a utd side in my lifetime.

Tackling, pressuring, off the ball movement, one touch passes, clinical finishing, skill..

Roma were chainsawed to pieces tonight by a flawless Utd side. And remarkably, it could have been more

One of those nights that will go down in history..

Guy:Incognito

Only seeing most of the goals now. Why was that goon of a keeper on the edge of the 6 yard box for every shot? Seriously after one or two youd imagine he'd get a bit iffy and stay on his line.

stepbar

Going to put the neck out here, we (United) will win the CL. I remember sitting in my sitting room the last time we were in a CL final. And the next morning, the replays of sheringham and solskjaer in around the Bayern box. **** was I a proud United supporter. I want to experience it again. Liverpool, u've had ur turn. This year it's United.

Chucky the tree

Stekelly wrote:

Only seeing mist of the goals now. Why was that goon of a keeper on the edge of the 6 yard box for every shot? Seriously after one or two youd imagine he'd get a bit iffy and stay on his line.

We all kow how fond those italians of are brown envelopes.

Little-Devil

Babybing wrote:

I hate Man U and absolutely despise that liitle sh1t Ronaldo but it is hilarious watching the RTE panel trying their best to try and make out they were right and Ronaldo is overrated.

I do think Dunphy and the others talk a lot sense, but they were nit picking tonight. I agree in one sense, but Ronaldo is "ONE" of the best players in the world at the moment on current form. IF we reach the final and he scores the winner :rolleyes: lol.

Raskolnikov

Little-Devil wrote:

I do think Dunphy and the others talk a lot sense, but they were nit picking tonight. I agree in one sense, but Ronaldo is "ONE" of the best players in the world at the moment on current form. IF we reach the final and he scores the winner :rolleyes: lol.

In fairness, Ronaldo was crap last season. He gave the ball away all the time (as opposed to some of the time this season) and couldn't cross to save his life. To be honest, I thought he'd always be something of a brainless winger but he's proved a lot of people wrong and improved his game.

eirebhoy

smemon wrote:

And remarkably, it could have been more

Not really. They took every chance available, and quite a few crackers from outside the box.

Pighead

eirebhoy wrote:

Mexes thinks Lyon are better than Utd: “I’d say Lyon were a better side. Even if they weren’t in the best form of the season, they are a more quality side overall,”


Roma tonight were 10 times better than they were at home to Lyon but they're more an away team.

Jesus if Lyon are a better team than United I shudder to think what the final result had of been if Lyon played them tonight!

eirebhoy wrote:

I've seen Roma play about 20 times this season, Man Utd are favourites to go through but I'm confident Roma will be in the semi's.

I see them as the best counter attacking team in the world. Simple as that really.

Well in the 11 minutes the scores were level I didn't see too much to justify that tag! I did see that they were pants in defence though!

Pighead walks away after giving eirebhoy the forum equivalent of a tackle from behind.

Yellow Card Son: Spiteful, mean and not in the spirit of the game.

tdv

Richardson still managed to play bad.

scojones

United were absolutely amazing tonight. Why they couldn't do that against Portsmouth is another debate. I'm thrilled, if they play like that they can beat any team in the world.

aidan24326

Ronaldo has been excellent this season and proved again tonight that he can be electrifying when on song. Brady and Dunphy are clutching at straws now. He may not be the great player he's cracked up to be but he is very good.

eirebhoy

Pighead wrote:

blah blah blah

Feck off. Roma are a quality team. I won't let one Champions league match change that. In fairness I'm usually attracted to teams that conced a million goals when I build them up.

Well in the 11 minutes the scores were level I didn't see too much to justify that tag! I did see that they were pants in defence though!

Did you actually see them play counter attacking football? I didn't. I said I believed they're the best team I've seen playing that type of football but they didn't actually get a chance to do it. Utd just weren't losing possession with 5 or 6 players in the Roma half which they obviously need to play on the break. Got their tactics spot on.

I'll continue to watch Roma whenever I get a chance. You should do too and see if you agree that they're an excellent team.

adox

Dunphy made a complete arse of himself tonight(again) and really made a fool of himself when after thte game he started banging on about Roma being 18 points behind Inter blah blah blah,after telling us what a good team they were 2 hours before hand.

He slags off the English press for their sanitised football coverage but RTE with Dunphy and Giles is becoming laughable.Dunphy for all his ranting about being a real football man is nothing more than a tabloid journalist,Everything is either great or terrible!Brady is the best of the three.I used to have time for Giles but FFS he`ll probably find fault with heaven if he gets there.

joe.

Masterclass. WTB torrent...

Dave!

Absolute legend of a performance from United. The team as a whole was amazing. Cracking goals. Smith was important, for the whole first half he didn't stop running at them. They needed to keep the pressure on, and that's what they did. Utterly amazing performance.

And all that without Scholes! :eek: Come on you reds!

If they keep up that momentum then they can win it

joe316

Pighead wrote:

Jesus if Lyon are a better team than United I shudder to think what the final result had of been if Lyon played them tonight!

well going on the old schoolyard principle it would have been 14 nil

Pighead

eirebhoy wrote:

Feck off. Roma are a quality team. I won't let one Champions league match change that. In fairness I'm usually attracted to teams that conced a million goals when I build them up.


Did you actually see them play counter attacking football? I didn't. I said I believed they're the best team I've seen playing that type of football but they didn't actually get a chance to do it. Utd just weren't losing possession with 5 or 6 players in the Roma half which they obviously need to play on the break. Got their tactics spot on.

I'll continue to watch Roma whenever I get a chance. You should do too and see if you agree that they're an excellent team.

Ah I know, that was a bit of a freak result. I'm only joshing with ya buddy. One question though and I demand honesty! Do you still think Roma are a better team than United?

smemon

yeah giles and dumphy need to lighten up..

the general view before the match was that Roma would win and this is the time when utd players need to stand tall.

Utd play a blinder, and hammer Roma, and now after the match:
"you can't judge them on one game.."
"Roma are a poor side, 18 points adrift in the league.."

it's a no-win situation. 8 years ago, dumphy would have been praising utd and how they're the best side in the world...

Keane leaves, and he drops them like a hot potato. Giles has become an ABU now also as he was too chicken to stand up to Dumphy when Dumphy supported Utd.

Out of the lot, Brady is the only real neutral.

BaZmO*

Raskolnikov wrote:

In fairness, Ronaldo was crap last season. He gave the ball away all the time (as opposed to some of the time this season) and couldn't cross to save his life. To be honest, I thought he'd always be something of a brainless winger but he's proved a lot of people wrong and improved his game.

In fairness to him he had a lot of personal problems last year but he's certainly proved his critics wrong this year, fair play to him!!

Only bad thing about Utd.'s performance tonight was Richardson. He played an absolute shocker when he came on, but if you're gonna play badly you might as well do it in a game that your team wins 7-1

DaveMcG wrote:

And all that without Scholes!

Paul who?

leninbenjamin

Utd did what they didn't do for a while now, they chased down and harried the Roma defenders when they were on the ball. In the last few matches when Utd lost possession in attack they simply left it up to the defenders to recover it. Tonight Smith and Fletcher in particular, did this to great effect, and it clearly unsettled the Roma team, who hadn't expected so much pressure all over the field. that's what won it. Even Ronaldo earlier on was defending and covering for O'Shea (who still had his hands full with Mancini).

Starting Smith was probably the best tactical decision Ferguson has made since bringing on Sheringham and Solskjaer in 1999.

And Chelsea powered through as expected. hate to say it but they deserved it.

eirebhoy

Pighead wrote:

Ah I know, that was a bit of a freak result. I'm only joshing with ya buddy. One question though and I demand honesty! Do you still think Roma are a better team than United?

I was more disappointed as a growing fan of Roma tonight more than the few quid I would have won on the final prediction. I had no money on them tonight. Player for player I think they're better than United. Although Ronaldo is as good as 3 players these days so that's no way to judge.

BaZmO*

eirebhoy wrote:

Although Ronaldo is as good as 3 players these days so that's no way to judge.

Although he doesn't do it in the big games...

leninbenjamin

BaZmO* wrote:

Although he doesn't do it in the big games...

in fairness he hasn't til today really... (at least i don't remember any)

BaZmO*

BaZmO* wrote:

Although he doesn't do it in the big games...

Coz tonight wasn't a big game?

LostinBlanch

Biggest victory in any CL quarterfinal, so definitely a night to savour!

If anyone wants to enjoy watching the goals from OT, here they are. Enjoy.

leninbenjamin

leninbenjamin wrote:

in fairness he hasn't til today really... (at least i don't remember any)

I remember him being the best player on the pitch in the fa cup final united lost to Arsenal!

BaZmO*

Turn on your sarcasm detectors lads...

Dcully

As a LFC fan ,that was a great performance tonight by both premiership outfits.
Man U have been playing solid stuff all season hence why they top of the premiership.
The last year or 2 when chelsea dominated Man U were writtne off by everyone but fair play to ferguson he got them up for it this year.
While never spectacular they have been the best side so far this year imo.
Chelase in their last 17 games won 14 drew 3 i think? They are on a roll and i expect a close finish for the title.
Tonight the word spectacular is fiting for Man U.
Ronaldo,player of the year for sure,great tonight again.

I still think Pool can beat chelsea over 2 legs if we overcome PSV tomorrow.
Id then love to meet Man U in the final and beat yas
Ive got a feeling about the CL this year being ours again,maybe wishfull thinking but i gotta have faith

Played chelsea and Man u tonight.

stepbar

Is nobody going to stick the neck out and go for a CL winner?

stovelid

smemon wrote:

yeah giles and dumphy need to lighten up..

the general view before the match was that Roma would win and this is the time when utd players need to stand tall.

Utd play a blinder, and hammer Roma, and now after the match:
"you can't judge them on one game.."
"Roma are a poor side, 18 points adrift in the league.."

it's a no-win situation. 8 years ago, dumphy would have been praising utd and how they're the best side in the world...

O Herlihy doesn't help with his consistently dopey line of questioning. He must be told to wind up the panel (so basically, we won 7-1, will yis now admit you're wrong and Ronaldo is a genius) for TV.

Giles and co are making a valid point too much and in a graceless way.

growler

great performance by chelsea tonight, i wasn't feeling very confident beforehand but after valencia going ahead, and looking very dangerous in the first 30 minutes, i was fecking ecstatic to see the sheva nick one and essien (least likely scorer of winning goal) stricking beautifully in the dying seconds for the win at a ground that doesn't concede easily. Fantastic to see Joe Cole back, and what an impact he made, even the glacial Ballack managed to put in a better performance than Lampard, this season has been a real rollercoaster for chelsea they sure ain't making it easy on their fans.

Great night for chelsea, bring on the pool.

Great performance by utd aswell, happy to see them kept busy in the CL too, gives us a better chance of stealing the league off them yet!

besty

Oh My God! What an amazing night of football from United. I couldn't believe my eyes at stages when I looked at the score. Really impressive performances from the "weak links" like Carrick, Fletcher, Smith. Hopefully we can carry this form into the run in and scoop the treble!

dcarroll

what was with dunphy calling ferdinand a tramp?
we can count ourselves lucky tho, they are far better than those bbc idiots/ fence sitters

redspider

Man Utd

WOW !!

I dont think anyone thought it could have been a 7-1 win for Man Utd over Roma, their biggest European win since 1968 against the much more lowly Waterford, and up there with their best ever results in Europe!

Its true that Roma were off colour and contributed to the score, with some poor defending (no closing down) and goalkeeping (not even diving?!?), but Man Utd put in a huge huge and commendable effort and would have won this game easily irregardless of whether Roma were at their best or not. And this was achieved with a 2nd string selection of sorts, no Vidic, no Neville, Larsson gone (is he wishing he stayed on now for a few more months?), no Saha, no Scholes.

The first goal was key and Roma had a few shots that went close-ish but once Carrick's went in Roma lacked any real fight and their defending got even worse. It could have been more than 7.

So, a very good result for Man Utd. Their tactics seemed to be straight-forward, give the ball to C.Ronaldo and see what he would do with it, see where the cracks appeared, and they did. Ferguson was delighted.

As for the RTE 'Comedy Panel' (Dumb-phy, Giles and Brady), as is more than often the case got it wrong again. Whilst their main point did have some validity, as in Man Utd showed a chink of vulnerability with their recent lose to Portsmouth and have at times been failing to put away teams, their prediction spectacularly blew up in their faces. What's ironic is that both Giles and Dunphy are Man Utd afficiando's so they deserted the ship a tad too early.

Chelsea
A different match with a much more difficult proposition. Things looked bad when they went 1-0 down and were outplayed for the first half. But they came into the game more, got the qualiser and then looked like they could shade it. Canizares made a brilliant save low down which was Gordon Banks-like, but after the 90th minute a low angled shot beat him at the near post, a cardinal sin for a goalie and it gave the win to Chelsea.


Semi-Finals:
It looks like 3 english teams will get through. Liverpool know Chelsea but also know that it will be difficult, and whilst we have nothing to fear, Valencia would have been the preferred opponents. It will be close.

Bayern are likely to get past AC Milan and face Man Utd. Their tails should still be up after this win, and they must be favourites to win it.

Final
So, does an all-English final beckon? It looks that way .... Liverpool v Man Utd is possible ..... nervy affairs in the league and more recently Man Utd have won them quite easily.


Redspider

besty

John O'Shea to score the winner in the Champions League final against Liverpool?