Football : Season 2009/2010

[Russ]

Hang on I think I've misunderstood this (think my painkillers have kicked in...). I thought United's away goal will see them through if the match aggregate ends up 4-4 or similar?

[danielf]

Originally Posted by Russ

Hang on I think I've misunderstood this (think my painkillers have kicked in...). I thought United's away goal will see them through if the match aggregate ends up 4-4 or similar?

If the aggregate is 4-4 Bayern will have 2 away goals. Man U just the one.

Get some sleep or something

And United go out. No English teams in the Semi-Finals. Kind of a shock if you ask me, I thought United had an easy path to the final and to be honest they should have done so. They are a better team than Bayern by quite a way.

[Russ]

How many more losses do we need to go through before SAF admits he was wrong to not strengthen the squad?

Originally Posted by Russ

How many more losses do we need to go through before SAF admits he was wrong to not strengthen the squad?

He didn't really have the money. The Glazers are too busy hording it all.

[Niles Crane]

Originally Posted by Damien

And United go out. No English teams in the Semi-Finals. Kind of a shock if you ask me, I thought United had an easy path to the final and to be honest they should have done so. They are a better team than Bayern by quite a way.

Putting aside my Arsenal allegiance for a moment; good. The arrogance and hyperbole surrounding the Premier League over the last few years has been sickening.

I'll be happy seeing any of the remaining teams win, but order of preference would be Lyon, Inter, Bayern, Barcelona. Basically, in order of longest time since last Champions League trophy.

Oh, and Arsenal need Chamakh and Llrois immediately.

Originally Posted by Niles Crane

Putting aside my Arsenal allegiance for a moment; good. The arrogance and hyperbole surrounding the Premier League over the last few years has been sickening.

I'll be happy seeing any of the remaining teams win, but order of preference would be Lyon, Inter, Bayern, Barcelona. Basically, in order of longest time since last Champions League trophy.

Oh, and Arsenal need Chamakh and Llrois immediately.

I really want Loris, not to keen on Chamakh.

I want Barcelona to win, they are just too good not too.

[Niles Crane]

Actually, i'd prefer Edin Dzeko to Chamakh, but the latter will be available on a free and Dzeko would likely cost at least 15 million.

The downside to no more English teams is the inevitable and incessant mentioning of it from now on.

A note to ITV's dimwitted commentators; this isn't revenge for "that night in Barcelona", they already knocked out Man United on their way to winning the trophy 2 years later.

Originally Posted by Niles Crane

Actually, i'd prefer Edin Dzeko to Chamakh, but the latter will be available on a free and Dzeko would likely cost at least 15 million.

The downside to no more English teams is the inevitable and incessant mentioning of it from now on.

A note to ITV's dimwitted commentators; this isn't revenge for "that night in Barcelona", they already knocked out Man United on their way to winning the trophy 2 years later.

Yes they are pretty dim

There is still quite a bit of Xenophobia in the British Sporting Press, you look at the way Bentiez (a.k.a The Fat Spanish Waiter) has been treated this season, or the contrast between the way Sir Alex Ferguson's and Wenger's rants at officials are covered, and you'll see what I mean. Meanwhile English managers get a much easier time.

O'Neill would be in for at least a little more security over this inability for his team to progress despite the investment and their 7-1 trashing by Chelsea if he came from mainland Europe.

That's why they are covering this as a tragedy. Arsenal got drawn against the best team in Europe. Inter Milan are good and United were unlucky. It's a freak occurrence and not indicative of British teams.

Originally Posted by Russ

How many more losses do we need to go through before SAF admits he was wrong to not strengthen the squad?

It's not SAF Russ, it is the American owners.

I read somewhere today that United have £100 million in the bank available for new players, that is quite small if you take away the £80 million United received for Ronaldo.

I also read somewhere that the Glazers dip into United's "pot" fairly regularly to boost their income, so maybe SAF can't touch it.
At some point when United struggle to win anything (like tonight), and money becomes less available to the Glazers, they may consider selling. (Hooray, then we can start again maybe)

The rot will set in when Fergie steps down or retires, some players will certainly leave, success & gates will diminish, etc etc.

I believe that at the moment SAF & Gill are just puppets for the Glazers, and are more or less told what to say about anything to do with the club. Gill would certainly be sacked if he stepped out of line, I am not sure what they would do if SAF did the same.

I have been urged to sign up for this http://action.joinmust.org/index.php/content/splash which I did, but I am not sure that collecting 150,000 email addresses would do the club any good, but we will see.

[dev]

Originally Posted by yesman

I read somewhere today that United have £100 million in the bank available for new players, that is quite small if you take away the £80 million United received for Ronaldo.

I remember something about £20m per window floating about so Fergie would have had £100m to spend. Problem was, clubs saw we had just got £80m for one player and so prices for any decent player jumped up - quick example was Bayern slapping £60m+ on Ribery's head. We know Fergie isn't like Wenger in terms of spending large amounts of money but he does refuse to pay inflated prices for players.

You go on about the potential of Fergie being a puppet but he doesn't seem the kind of manager who would take it, and let's face it, if he wasn't happy with the way things were going, announcing his retirement at the end of X season wouldn't be a total shock considering his age, how long he's been the manager and what he's done so I doubt the Glazers would have much ammo to try and stop him leaving.

[Matty_]

I was quite surprised at how much the game changed when Rooney got injured. I`m not saying Man U are a one man team, they have players like Evra, Vidic, Fletcher, etc who would walk into most teams but it looked like the whole team/stadium was more concerned about how Rooney was than finding a way through it.
Then for Bayern to score when they did, which i still can`t understand, why was it Carrick who was challenging him not Ferdinand or Vidic plus not great keeping from Van de Saar.

Still an absolute belter of finish from Robben, a worthy winner to any game, but in reality United should have allready had the game sewn up. Nani looks like a world beater at times, but at others he looks average, these guys are meant to be super fit footballers and should be able to last 90 minutes without having dizzy spells.

Hopefully this will keep our old friends Platini and Blatter quiet for a bit!

[punky]

SSN: Manchester United have agreed a deal to sign Mexican striker Javier Hernandez from Chivas for an Undisclosed fee

Barcelona have beaten Madrid 2 - 0, probably meaning they will win La Liga again this year.

[Derek]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/foot...ps/8609777.stm

Celtic slumped to one of the worst results in their history as Ross County stunned the Glasgow giants at Hampden to reach the Scottish Cup final.

An excellent season all round for celtic, splashing out huge amounts on a manager who didn't last the season, a hugely expensive loan deal for a 4th choice striker that only seems to score from the penalty spot and a distinct possibility of not even finishing 2nd in the league.