The team/Fergie bottled it after the red

[Summit]

I agree with you 500%
It's weird but we don't seem to do well with red cards. The bench need reacts to red card or when a player gets injured and he's off for a moment. That's tactical harakiri. After Nani was sent off, Giggs and Cleverley should have been hauled off for players who can hassle(Rooney and Anderson) and then defend!

Chelsea are not as decent as us but Chelsea would have seen that game out! They went 2 goals down last season at Nou Camp and they rallied round to stage a comeback. They made the first change around the 56th min. A game like tonight after the red card is not where we could afford passengers anymore.

The 1000th game charade seems to have cost us a quarter final ticket.

Really? Remember when Torres got sent off against us?

 

[Plechazunga]

I think it was more out of shock than anything else. We didn't know what hit us. Not the players, nor the fans or the manager. The red was totally out of the blue and we were left shell shocked.

I am sure if it was a deserved red, things would have been different. I don't think we can fault the players in this particular instant.

It was the shock, no question. That was the reason we lost our heads, but it doesn't explain it away.

Leadership, resolve, tactical nous, and a bit of luck, have often seen out 35 minutes with ten men, even against excellent sides.

 

[paceme]

OP is an idiot, so is anyone agreeing with him

 

[MDFC Manager]

I agree with you 500%
It's weird but we don't seem to do well with red cards. The bench need reacts to red card or when a player gets injured and he's off for a moment. That's tactical harakiri. After Nani was sent off, Giggs and Cleverley should have been hauled off for players who can hassle(Rooney and Anderson) and then defend!

Chelsea are not as decent as us but Chelsea would have seen that game out! They went 2 goals down last season at Nou Camp and they rallied round to stage a comeback. They made the first change around the 56th min. A game like tonight after the red card is not where we could afford passengers anymore.

The 1000th game charade seems to have cost us a quarter final ticket.

What a load of bollocks...Do you seriously think we had a chance after going a man down? Giggs was one of our best players tonight as well, ffs.

 

[moses]

We were stunned by the decision. We didn't bottle it, but we didn't stand up to the new challenge.

In Euro 2002 when the Italians lost a man v the Dutch at 0-0 after about 25 mins, pens were immediately inevitable.

 

[Striker10]

We didn't bottle it. We just didn't take our chances in the two games. For me, our best player in maybe both games was Welbeck and he was unlucky. If we can get him scoring wonderful but I think it's silly to talk about Sir Alex lacking bottle considering the team he put out.

 

[Plechazunga]

What a load of bollocks...Do you seriously think we had a chance after going a man down?

Of course we had a chance, don't be daft. It's not THAT fecking easy against ten men, if they don't go to pieces like we did.

 

[moses]

@Tommy_CTS: Strange sport where a keeper can miss judge and punch a player in the head without punishment, yet controlling ball in air is straight red.

At best they were both miscalculated challenges. If one was a red then both were.

 

[Plechazunga]

We were stunned by the decision. We didn't bottle it, but we didn't stand up to the new challenge.

In Euro 2002 when the Italians lost a man v the Dutch at 0-0 after about 25 mins, pens were immediately inevitable.

This.

 

[samabachan]

I'm not a rawkite by any means, but please ban samba gab from these forums. What an absolute retard.

You realise the implications a red has at this level? When a player has more instructions than a redcafe account creation. You absolute fecking deluded retard. Please stick to fifa. cnut.

So we are becoming RAWK then, where everyone has to toe the party line? I hope the site doesn't become like that. I think that enough people have agreed with me in this thread that I make a valid point, even if you disagree with the tone or expression of the post. Also, it should be a caf rule that anyone Plech agrees with should be made unbannable. Plech you sexy grammar nazi.

 

[moses]

What a load of bollocks...Do you seriously think we had a chance after going a man down? Giggs was one of our best players tonight as well, ffs.

10 men does make it harder to score but if you set up right, 10 men can be really hard to beat.

 

[Anderson's Cat]

When the feck did Roy Keane join the caf?

 

[Plechazunga]

So we are becoming RAWK then, where everyone has to toe the party line? I hope the site doesn't become like that. I think that enough people have agreed with me in this thread that I make a valid point, even if you disagree with the tone or expression of the post. Also, it should be a caf rule that anyone Plech agrees with should be made unbannable. Plech you sexy grammar nazi.

Partisan

 

[adexkola]

Of course we had a chance, don't be daft. It's not THAT fecking easy against ten men, if they don't go to pieces like we did.

A team with 11 players will win against a team with 10 players. I'll slap a -3sigma on that.

 

[pauldyson1uk]

I know this will be controversial and unpopular, but that team is capable of easily holding out against Madrid for half an hour with 10 men, with a little luck.

We got our luck (the Rafael handball) and we still made a monkeys of it because the team went too deep too early and Fergie was far too slow to react. You can only play what's on the pitch and it was Fergies/the management team's job to change something that so so clearly wasn't working, that even the ITV commentary team pointed it out.

Within 5 minutes Mourinho had made 2 changes but Fergie just let things roll for 10 minutes in a crucial period where we desperately needed some fresh impetus.

I still think this squad is capable of great things and we will see that in the next few years, but the red should not have been the be all and end all of the result tonight.

we are all mad about the game , but hopefully when you have calmed down, you will see just how fecking wrong this thread is and delete it.

 

[KM]

To be fair, it was a fecking class strike by Modric.

After the first goal though we lost our shit.

 

[botond]

somebody delete this shit thread already and send samabachan off to rawk

 

[Member 5225]

I have to admit I do agree with the premise of the title of this thread; shocking ref decisions happen to every single team, some just take it on the chin and get on with it, we always seem to disintegrate IMHO

 

[ArmchairCritic]

We were stunned by the decision. We didn't bottle it, but we didn't stand up to the new challenge.

In Euro 2002 when the Italians lost a man v the Dutch at 0-0 after about 25 mins, pens were immediately inevitable.

Hmmmm I agree somewhat. Real players were getting that space they didn't have before and it so hard to communicate and adapt quickly it really is. I mean between Vidic and Ferdinand there's no duo out there better to deal with this issue, that's life though I guess.

 

[RedPhil1957]

Well yeah, they feel the same things we do, but we're not world-class sportsmen and that's not just because of skill.

It's how you respond to those emotions that's a measure of your greatness in the end. We lost our heads, not all sides do.

People quote teams like Chelsea - Milan but they both have been coached to have a completely different mentality to United, defending first is their instinct.

 

[Zen86]

OP is a clown.

 

[Cina]

If this thread was made tomorrow then the reactions would be far less angry. There's truth in there somewhere, for ten minutes after the card the team just looked completely shellshocked.

 

[Pat_Mustard]

I agree with you 500%
It's weird but we don't seem to do well with red cards. The bench need reacts to red card or when a player gets injured and he's off for a moment. That's tactical harakiri. After Nani was sent off, Giggs and Cleverley should have been hauled off for players who can hassle(Rooney and Anderson) and then defend!

Chelsea are not as decent as us but Chelsea would have seen that game out! They went 2 goals down last season at Nou Camp and they rallied round to stage a comeback. They made the first change around the 56th min. A game like tonight after the red card is not where we could afford passengers anymore.

The 1000th game charade seems to have cost us a quarter final ticket.

Nonsense. Giggs was excellent at both ends of the pitch and had plenty of running left in him after the sending off.

 

[ArmchairCritic]

I'm not buying this mentality stuff, we were sitting back relatively, just look at the possession.

 

[Bross]

I havent read anything except the OP but what a dumb fecking thread. The entire team was excellent before and after the red, and SAF made the right subs that made us keep the pressure up throughout.

feck off OP.

 

[Kevin]

Of course what happened at the Allianz influenced our response to going down to 10 men, the tie has to be put in context. Comparative to Bayern I really felt we had Real at arms length over the two ties, a bit shaky for 20 mins away but by and large I felt defensively we were really well organised. Messi missed a penalty last year, Modric and Robben scored crackers, it's fine margins.

I disagree, I do feel we are worse than others at playing with ten men. Youtube the Inter performance against Barca, Pique scored a goal, Messi missed a big chance with a free header. A correctly disallowed goal from Barca.

That was it. 70 minutes. At the Nou Camp. Keeping your calm after the outrage of being fecked over by the Busquets peekaboo red is surely as challenging and more present in the mind of a player at that moment in a game than regretting the last minute goal of a tie weeks ago.

It is not that easy against ten.

 

[adexkola]

If we had gone through after the decision, it would be extraordinary. The team weren't extraordinary after the red card, I'll give you that. But there's a huge chasm between being mediocre, and bottling it.

 

[ArmchairCritic]

Also I think we are doing Mourinho a disservice here, he always has a plan preset for a game scenario like that. He exploited us, I am really struggling to think as to what we could have done tactically though.

 

[Plechazunga]

A team with 11 players will win against a team with 10 players. I'll slap a -3sigma on that.

In 35 minutes? Pretty sure ten men quite often survive that, especially with a goal lead.

To be fair, it was a fecking class strike by Modric.

After the first goal though we lost our shit.

We lost our shit before the first goal, it was a nice strike but it was looking inevitable, they were rampant and we were in disarray.

People quote teams like Chelsea - Milan but they both have been coached to have a completely different mentality to United, defending first is their instinct.

We've got a class defence and have parked the bus before, notably at Barca in 09.

 

[samabachan]

I would personally have brought Giggs off right after the red, I thought he looked a little leggy and we needed energy. Might have been right, might have been wrong, but then I'm not managing one of the biggest clubs in the world and am not being paid 8 figures a year to decide these things.

 

[Slevs]

It wasn't a question of 35 minutes, we didn't even make it 10 minutes hardly before Madrid were 2-1 up, despite having had barely a shot on goal in the previous 50. I could take it if it was a heroic last stand and Real took half an hour to crack us, but they were 2-1 up within 10 minutes and make no mistake, it could have been even faster.

I am fed up of saying, year after year, 'oh we got jibbed by the ref AGAIN', I'd like just once to be able to say, yeah, the ref jibbed us, but we still came through anyway.'

Well, you still didn't answer my question, what changes could Sir Alex have done to change the outcome of those 35 minutes?

 

[SittingBull]

The ref did, but as I said, you can only play the hand you have. We DID get jibbed, absolutely no doubt, but we played the hand we had left really really badly...

Come on.. The reason why you came out with this thread is because you saw us creating some chances towarads the last 15mins, not even realising that Real Madrid had already taken the foot off the pedal and rightfully confident of going through. Had we played such open attacking football from the start, we would have been at least 2-3goals down.

 

[adexkola]

In 35 minutes? Pretty sure ten men quite often survive that, especially with a goal lead.

Quite often? Against a team with such quality? Nonsense.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

In 35 minutes? Pretty sure ten men quite often survive that, especially with a goal lead.

Nowadays it's rather than often. Teams seem to have worked out how to beat ten men (I can't remember the last time we failed to beat a team that was down to 10 mean with more than half an hour to go). We can just pick less than a handful of games where a team has actually survived with 10 men in the top matches.

 

[sullydnl]

If this thread was made tomorrow then the reactions would be far less angry. There's truth in there somewhere, for ten minutes after the card the team just looked completely shellshocked.

Madrid have a better team than us, it was going to be a challenge to beat them with 11 men. Once we were down to ten it would have been a mini miracle to hold out for half an hour. We weren't shell shocked so much as we were simply outplayed for those 10 minutes. The only reason we improved after that was because Real decided to sit back but even then they looked like they could go back up a gear if they needed to.

 

[ArmchairCritic]

I disagree, I do feel we are worse than others at playing with ten men. Youtube the Inter performance against Barca, Pique scored a goal, Messi missed a big chance with a free header. A correctly disallowed goal from Barca.

That was it. 70 minutes. At the Nou Camp. Keeping your calm after the outrage of being fecked over by the Busquets peekaboo red is surely as challenging and more present in the mind of a player at that moment in a game than regretting the last minute goal of a tie weeks ago.

It is not that easy against ten.

Difference is Mourinho's a far more wily character than Pep, he has plans for certain situations already. There was mixture of things that helped him win at the Nou Camp, I really can't think what we can do tactically to stop us from being ruthlessly exposed. We could have been more composed but that's about it.

 

[samabachan]

Well, you still didn't answer my question, what changes could Sir Alex have done to change the outcome of those 35 minutes?

Should have brought Rooney on straight away, whether for van Persie, Giggs or Cleverly I don't think would make a huge difference. Mourinho made 2 subs within 5 minutes and they all of a sudden began to dominate immediately. Fergie was just way too slow to react, as were the team. Let's say it this way, if we had been in this situation in '99 with Keane in the middle there is no way we would have folded like that, whether it would have been the team or the boss who reacted. We may or may not have lost the game and/or the tie, but we wouldn't have folded so softly, no chance.

 

[FlawlessThaw]

Seems like the alternatives that the "Fergie bottled it camp" are coming up with is making changes for the sake of making changes, irrespective of the fact that Fergie did make changes.

 

[RK]

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[Plechazunga]

Well someone will have to find the stats

We've all seen it though. It would have taken great character and some luck - like coming back from 1-0 down in injury time in a CL final - but that's the sort of thing you have to do sometimes if you're to be called a great team. When it came to the test, we didn't rise to it, harsh as it was. We've showed we're a team with class and good enough to beat the Madrid side, but we've not shown we're a great team yet.