Well that'll do, eh?

The Hairdryer

Cry me a river, what a twat.

Wibble

I think that if we had Vidic fit we might have had far more ambition. I also think that if we had scored the penalty or been given one of the others we would have seen a very different game. SOmetimes you need that little break to change the flow of a game and we didn't get it tonight.

In years past that might have meant us coming home with a loss. I am incredibly optomistic after that performance.

MadDogg

There was a big difference between how we played against Barca and how we did against Roma & Lyon. Against those two we were in control; they mave have had more of the ball but they were playing where we wanted. Our mobile, physical midfield pushed them back and we just picked them off everytime they came forward and hit them on the break. Basically, they were impressive away performances.

Against Barca was much more like our naive performances of a few years ago. Getting ran over in the centre of the park, and letting the other team control proceedings. It was just that our defence is strong enough these days that we were able to stop them putting a chance away.

Hopefully Anderson and Hargreaves will play with Carrick in the second leg so we can take control and steamroll them.

devilish

I agree with you tactics wise we werent great. Stating that at this stage we are playing against Messi, Etoo etc and not Vucinic and Taddei.

CnutOfAllCnuts

Good summary that Plech, without writing a spastic essay on it.

Good result, excellent defensive performance, terrible attacking performance.

It will be 1-1 at OT, Barca to go through on away goals, as predicted...

Name Changed

Barca will probably score at OT if we attack. To be honest if we play anything like we did last night then I'd expect that Barca will get a score draw.

SAF needs to change a couple of things around. And Anderson has to start.

Julian Denny

Is it a good result ? - I'm not sure. Certainly we were outplayed for most of the game and our "attacking stars" rendered largely inept on the night. I think, given Barca's domination and quite brilliant play at times, we were lucky not to come away with a deficit - 2-1 or even 3-1 perhaps - assuming we managed to convert a penalty . No matter we got everyone behind the ball and our defence was superbly marshalled by Rio. Hopefully Barca won't play, or more pertinently be allowed to play, anywhere near as well as they did last night in the return and that their finishing will be equally inept. Hopefully we will offer a great deal more in attack at home and perhaps expose Barca's unsure defence a lot more than we did last night. So yes, perhaps it is a good result but I don't think we've been dominated like that for quite some time in any competition and maybe that's a cause for concern. Despite Messi, E'to, Bojan and co, Barca don't seem to carry the same threat upfront as the Real of Ronaldo and Raul did in similar circumstances a few years ago.

Different tactics for Chelsea please. We can't expect to get away with it two matches running!

Fergie's gum

Bad Points:
1. Couldn't get a hold of the game. Totally overrun.
2. No away goal which kinda means we have to win at OT.
3. Nobody turned up, or were they just not allowed to (see Milan 07).
4. Nerves got to them. Favorites tag was too much for them to handle.

Good Points:
1. Performance can only get better at OT.
2. Didn't lose, which kinda sets it up nicely for us to play for and get a win.
3. We've given Barca false hope that they can come to OT and get the result. They'll be more open, and more daring, and that will allow us to cut them open.
4. Our defense was superb. With Vidic in it, and Brown in his RB position, we'll be totally capable of keeping a clean sheet at OT.

2-0 home win

FranklyVulgar

Agree, anyone saying 0-0 is a great result is deluded. Away goals are such an important factor in Europe.

Barca V Chelsea final.

Pat_Mustard

Well said.


I agree that we invited pressure through our poor passing, but almost all Barca's possession was in front of our defence. The midfield played their part in stopping them getting in on goal. They were just shite in posession.

I was edging towards wanting a Carrick, Anderson, Hargreaves midfield for last night's game, but Scholes was easily our best midfielder yesterday. The only one that showed any composure on the ball, and he held his own physically and made some great interceptions.

Bilbo

Barca weaved pretty patterns all night, with no end product at all. You could tell the way we dropped off when we lost possession that we were fairly content to let them have the ball, although this was also mainly because we couldn't get the bloody thing off them.

Its a two-legged tie. We showed last night what a superb defensive unit we have. Next week we'll put theirs to the test, and they'll see more of what we're all about. 0-0 at the Nou Camp is a very decent result.

IhabX7

Main factor was confidence. Our only players who were confident about their ability, are Ronaldo, Evra, and Ferdinand. Anyone else bottled it, attacking wise. Our passing was poor because our players have less technical abillity and belief in themselves. No confidence what so ever.

Close control decided the game for me. Their midfield of Xavi Iniesta and Deco are great on the ball, better than Carrick and Scholes when it comes to dictating the tempo, and better dribblers from midfield. When you have the abillity to shield the ball and dribble it earns you time to pick a pass, we didn't have that, and thats what swayed the game in Barcelona's favour. They seemed hard to knock of the ball without a foul (or a dive), and cruised past our midfield. Scholes had some great tackles, but attacking wise he was part of the problem, the only one who has done anything noteworthy in attack is obviously Ronaldo. No one else existed. Its like we thought hoof the ball, Ronaldo will chase it, maybe, luckily he will nick a goal. Its really unfair to him. While Messi had a dynamic trio of Xavi Deco and Iniesta running around him for a simple pass all the time, Ronaldo had himself only, and he did beat his first marker more than enough, but there was no one there.

Im pretty sure though, that if we had Ronaldo on the wing and Rooney upfront we would have stole a goal. We would have had an extra player on the pitch, because no matter how much Rooney helped the defence, we wasted a game winning card. And I don't think Abidal would have attacked all that much if he had Ronaldo to worry about, because Ronaldo was superb with his dribbling through out the first half. It was like Roma away last year, he was the only attacking player with any threat, and his persistence led to that superbly taken goal by Rooney.

Our defence was absolutely superb. Ferdinand and Wes looked very good, except that mistake by Wes. Evra contained Messi very well, and this whole "he will tear Evra/us apart" story is just wrong. Hargreaves was alright.

Tevez, looked slow and heavy, his touch let him down on every occasion. Same goes for Park.

The penalty miss: Well, Ive really expected him to put it in. It happens but he should be more composed next time, it could prove costly and he knows that. Its the way he approached the ball that was wrong, he should have just stuttered and sent Valdez the wrong way, Valdez was always going to his right anyway, they watch these stuff on videos. The thing is, that if it went in the whole game would have been different. hopefully he can atone for this "error" next week.

Pogue Mahone

Couple more good points.

1. Only one yellow card means that Evra and Nani are still the only two players who are a booking away from missing the next game. The other 3 semi-finalists all have a number of really important players who are one yellow card away from missing the final.

2. Compact and disciplined perfirmance meant that we didn't need to run ourselves into the ground, chasing a result. The game was very measure and played at a slow pace. Perfect preperation for a massive game on Saturday.

God Points > Bad Points

2-0 home win, I agree.

Partizan

Do you want us to start calling you lot Bitters.

Pogue Mahone

Dontcha just love the way the gooners are being eaten up inside by another trophyless season?

"But... but... we play great football... "

Boo fucking hoo, losers!

spinoza

Probably right.

Bit disappointed with not scoring last night - gilt edged chance with the penalty and should have had another.

spinoza

Yep. They might even nick a win.

Partizan

Makes my day Pogue, makes my fuckin day. Away and have a doughnut party.

Frosty

I can't see us losing to be honest. But I can see a score draw.

Wes

Its a missed opportunity, more than anything else. They were there for the taking, and we allowed them to have the ball as much as they wanted to. We didn't really have enough balls to run at them and get players forward. Even on the counter where we had the odd decent situatuion, nobody was up with Ronaldo to give him a hand. At one stage we had 3 players up for a corner - not really good enough seeing as their defence is questionable, and we never asked questions of it. Too negative, but with the week thats in it, maybe a 0-0 is the better score in the medium term.

MehdiMahdavikia

It's a bad result in context of statistics.The away side in the second leg almost (the only time I can think of this didn't happen was the Liverpool-Chelsea phantom goal match) always goes through if the first leg is 0-0. The Milan-Arsenal tie is a good example, Milan came away with nill-nill in North London which is a creditable result but ended up having a massive disadvantage at home because if Arsenal scored it counted for two. It tactically fucks teams over because they can't push forward for the kill and they can't sit back either.

IhabX7

How about, "we have one fuckin match on our hands, lets win it" kind of mentality. Easy, win the game and progress, anything else is not good enough. Its either we are good enough to win it this year or not. Im sure the players are up for it.

Pogue Mahone

It's also the only example you've come up with to support your opinion. With the Liverpool-Chelsea game being an example against it.

Those "statistics" aren't all that convincing.

quethenoo

You are clearly joking or clearly deranged, which is it?

Plechazunga

I thought it was quite a compelling match. A very clever passing team against a very disciplined defensive side. Seen plenty of good games like that in the past, only it's usually us who are doing the clever passing.

It wasn't pretty, but it got the result, that's what's different about us this year.

Ladies and gentlemen: David Pleat

Agreed, except for the bizarre decision to put inverted commas round 'early'

Egg fucking zackly

evil_geko

Not good result, Barca can easily go through if they score first.