it was all good. to the extent we thought the real man utd had shown up, the 2 defeats in the last 8 days were flukes, and maybe even a roma was in store. we played football like we knew and made bayern look like a second-grade team.
for 45mins.
fergie did the wise thing and dropped the three stalwarts. they were simply not good enough and too slow against chelsea and bayern last week. and fergie wasnt sentimental. in came rafael, gibson and nani, three youngsters who grabbed their chances and starred.
for 45mins.
and the mother of all shockers. the gaffer tricked both the media and van gaal by saying rooney had no chance and he wont risk him. rooney the magic healer started and although wasnt 100% his usual level, made a difference. for 45mins.
disaster then struck. and everything went downhill from there.
unfortunately even with the positives, the man utd performance was about flaws again. after the first leg and chelsea defeats, this merely confirmed the whispers around manchester.
something needs to be done.
Rafael
without doubt the villain of the night. his immaturity cost man utd a semi-final place. no wonder everyone is saying if he wasnt sent off we would have won it. two stupid fouls, a red card, and the impetus went to bayern. the magnitude of losing him really was no joke. man utd went from controlling possession to struggling to touch a ball whisked around them.
Pathetic performance
and then the worst 25mins ive seen from man utd in the years ive supported them. with 10 men but still more than half an hour to go, they caved in. decided to sit back and defend the lead, a lead that would become elimination if bayern just manage one more goal. moreover, with the momentum on bayern's end, a dumbass would be able to tell it was a matter of time before bayern struck.
but it wasnt just that. it wasnt about sitting back like cowards in front of a hallowed but ashamed stretford end. it was about not being able to get the ball, not having the courage to play, and worst, no technique to.
o'shea came in, but he's one of the worst ball-carriers around; evra was probably the star left on man utd's team but he was shackled due to robben's presence. nani played alone upfront and valencia became a midfielder, not winger, seriously hampering his strengths. most disappointing of all were the trio of fletcher, gibson and carrick: the former two were a notch below the bayern midfielders, while the latter, the best technical player left, simply did not rise to the occasion.
i had to agree with david pleat that on hindsight, man utd should have gone for broke and continued playing, because that way bayern would stay afraid. what's more, with 10 men, a man utd playing counter-attack can become any team's nightmare, especially an opponent chasing a goal.
One Trick Pony
2009/2010 has been about rooney. man utd was all him. and struggled terribly without him. we had no spine against chelsea, and after an at-best 60% rooney was substituted, man utd became uninspired and a bunch of headless chickens. not just tactically, but psychologically. bayern became inspired with our only trick gone.
for everything that surrounded the departures of ronaldo and tevez, we are worse off, no doubt.
Bayern's superior tactics
give the germans credit. at whichever point when we played well over the two legs, the opponents were doing some things right. really right. they were so good at them it made me realise no other team seemed to have done them and and nullified us.
for one, was the way their midfielders consciously closed down our slow midfielders. it was one of the reasons they won the first leg, as scholes, giggs, fletcher and carrick got dispossessed countless times, and we had no solution to it. remember the days giggs would be steadfast enough to put off such harrying opponents, scholes was quicksilver and punished such opponents for their carelessness with positional discipline. then there were rooney, ronaldo, tevez, keane, van nistelrooy and hargreaves. but on wednesday it was painful watching man utd as the trio could not find their feet and steady themselves.
van gaal, i salute you.
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