We are too forgiving of average performances from the managers to the players, do you think chelsea would be giving the likes of jones a new contract, ole would not have last further than the first half of season he had with the team's performances but at united we are happy with minimal "progress"
European titles - United 3, Chelsea 2. How do you feel about it?
- Thread starter Chicharo
- Start date
Still strange
Hampered by the foreigner rule in the mid 90s, but once that went, we had year after year of hard luck story exits. That semi final exit in 97 was dreadful.
The bad luck to play Barcelona and lose in 2 finals, but the biggest regret is always that year we were playing Bayern off the pitch, Rooney got injured, and then Rafael gave that stupid red card away.
It does show how hard it is to win this cup.
Even the year we dominated Chelsea in the final and should have been well ahead in the first half we still let them back into it, and had to scrape through on pens.
The bad luck to play Barcelona and lose in 2 finals, but the biggest regret is always that year we were playing Bayern off the pitch, Rooney got injured, and then Rafael gave that stupid red card away.
It does show how hard it is to win this cup.
Even the year we dominated Chelsea in the final and should have been well ahead in the first half we still let them back into it, and had to scrape through on pens.
Extremely hard competition to win. Sorta crazy Chelsea won it this year... When we won it, we were clearly the best team in England and clearly top team in Europe, and we still won it "unconvincingly"... This Chelsea team won this out of nowhere. Average team with obviously a great manager.
Both times Chelsea won this thing, they weren't the best team. Sorta just happens to them. The way they played in the final and semis, you would think they are the best team in the World, but they aren't... Yea, I am bitter.
Both times Chelsea won this thing, they weren't the best team. Sorta just happens to them. The way they played in the final and semis, you would think they are the best team in the World, but they aren't... Yea, I am bitter.
I'd prefer to have neither.
United success and I have been following the club since the days of big Ron was hard earned from the bottom up. Fergusons success while working under such crappy owners was remarkable.
Well between the two plastic oil clubs , Chelsea was by far the better alternative, at least they were somewhat good team sometimes before Roman came in.
And denying City their first ever European cup really is a good shout.
But they better not catch up with us...
And denying City their first ever European cup really is a good shout.
But they better not catch up with us...
Kinell after all we done for you guys !
Stop stevie winning the league !
Stop a city quadruple !
Stop City winning the cl for the first time !
Its a cup competition so any mistake and whoops your out on your arse.
Remember we did lose 2 finals to Barcelona in 3 years when that team was regarded by most football critics world over to be the best club side they had ever seen!!
We seem to do okay at the start of the competition then for some unknown reason take out eye off the ball and clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Also you need that modicum of good luck on your side with opponents to face and having all your squad available to pick from.
Yeah not happy with chelski getting to within 1 win of us in the CL.
Remember we did lose 2 finals to Barcelona in 3 years when that team was regarded by most football critics world over to be the best club side they had ever seen!!
We seem to do okay at the start of the competition then for some unknown reason take out eye off the ball and clutch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Also you need that modicum of good luck on your side with opponents to face and having all your squad available to pick from.
Yeah not happy with chelski getting to within 1 win of us in the CL.
Maybe. If we'd beaten Real, we'd have been up against Dortmund who were a pretty good side under Klopp. Then Bayern again in the final, I would have fancied our chances against them. One regret is that after the debacle in Rome and Ronaldo's exit, we did nothing to rebuild and when we played Barca again at Wembley, it was a sad thing to see. Having said that, United have always underachieved in Europe. We should have more than three European Cups.
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Well if a team makes the Chmps Lgue final and beats the domestic champion of their own country then they would be the only team in Europe who could lay claim to being the best at that moment in time.
I think we're gonna see EPL clubs challenging strongly for the UCL in the foreseeable future. We have arguably the strongest league in the world that is attracting the best talent in the world. And as far as our record of 3 wins in the competition goes, yes, it's not good enough and we should've won more. But people need to remember that for a long time only one team qualified for the European Cup, then two teams and so on and so forth. The EPL was also way behind the Italian and Spanish leagues too, for a large part of Fergie's early tenure. And it was extremely difficult to win the competition. But having said that, we should've won at least a few more.
But we have to look forward now and not cry over spilt milk. Someone earlier said that United are too focused on the future, rather than the present, I have to disagree. It's Chelsea that focused both on the future and the present and created a structure from the youth to the first team that has paid dividends, with the aid of Abramovich's money.
What we have to ask ourselves, do we now have a structure that is comparable to Chelsea's at the present time? I would say, yes. Does Chelsea have a person running the football department at the club that comes from a footballing background? I would say, no, Marina Granovskaia isn't someone that has a footballing back ground and got to know the Chelsea owner via working at one of his oil companies, which helped her get the job at Chelsea.
So just to illustrate how far behind we had fallen to the likes of Chelsea when it came to elite level youth development and scouting, I will provide a outlook (below) of what was left behind when Fergie retired to what was created from 2014 to 2017 by John Murtough.
When Fergie retired, his brother Martin also retired with him, which meant we only had one fulltime scout (Jim Lawlor) who subsequently had no access to a database and had stored all the recruitment information in his head according to reports. Derek Langley was the head of recruitment, who collated scout reports from either the part time scouts or the coaching staff, who were sent to scout players. This was the setup that was devoid of a data science department, which left us in the wilderness and is quite simply shocking the way things were left to fester.
Below is what Murtough put in place along with a data science team and a data science department in 2017. Anyone who says that the below names aren't of the best in their respective divisions is a Grade A idiot as far as I'm concerned.
Scouting Bosses:
•Head of Global Scouting: Marcel Bout
•Chief Scout: Jim Lawlor
•Head of Academy Recruitment: David Harrison
•Assistant Head of Academy •Recruitment: Lyndon Tomlinson
•Head of European Scouting: Henny de •Regt
Lead Scouts (Worldwide):
•America: Jorge Alvial, Mark Prizant
•Argentina (Academy): Juan Mauricio Echeverria
•Brazil (Academy - Sergio de Souza): Sandro Orlandelli
•Colombia: Giuseppe Antonaccio
•Japan: Kei Tamura
•Uruguay: Luciano Canepa
Lead Scouts (Europe):
•Austria: Armand Benneker
•Belgium: Roland Janssen
•Central/ Eastern Europe (Academy): Bernard Schuiteman, Radoslaw Kucharski
•England: Ronnie Cusick (North-West), •Mark Anderson (South England)
•France (Academy): Mathieu Seckinger
•Holland: Roy Beukenkamp
•Netherlands (Academy): Rene Moonen
•Portugal: Joao Ferreira (Academy - Vasco Noronha)
•Scandinavia: Tommy Moller Nielsen
•Spain: Gerardo Guzman
•Switzerland: Thomas Bormann
A few names have since departed and have been replaced by others, but I hope the above gives some of you a brief insight on how bad things had got when Fergie retired, structurally. And I believe with the our current squad and the youth that's coming through (tweet below), a Head Coach who has world class or potentially world class abilities, will get us to challenge for all and sundry IMO.
But we have to look forward now and not cry over spilt milk. Someone earlier said that United are too focused on the future, rather than the present, I have to disagree. It's Chelsea that focused both on the future and the present and created a structure from the youth to the first team that has paid dividends, with the aid of Abramovich's money.
What we have to ask ourselves, do we now have a structure that is comparable to Chelsea's at the present time? I would say, yes. Does Chelsea have a person running the football department at the club that comes from a footballing background? I would say, no, Marina Granovskaia isn't someone that has a footballing back ground and got to know the Chelsea owner via working at one of his oil companies, which helped her get the job at Chelsea.
So just to illustrate how far behind we had fallen to the likes of Chelsea when it came to elite level youth development and scouting, I will provide a outlook (below) of what was left behind when Fergie retired to what was created from 2014 to 2017 by John Murtough.
When Fergie retired, his brother Martin also retired with him, which meant we only had one fulltime scout (Jim Lawlor) who subsequently had no access to a database and had stored all the recruitment information in his head according to reports. Derek Langley was the head of recruitment, who collated scout reports from either the part time scouts or the coaching staff, who were sent to scout players. This was the setup that was devoid of a data science department, which left us in the wilderness and is quite simply shocking the way things were left to fester.
Below is what Murtough put in place along with a data science team and a data science department in 2017. Anyone who says that the below names aren't of the best in their respective divisions is a Grade A idiot as far as I'm concerned.
Scouting Bosses:
•Head of Global Scouting: Marcel Bout
•Chief Scout: Jim Lawlor
•Head of Academy Recruitment: David Harrison
•Assistant Head of Academy •Recruitment: Lyndon Tomlinson
•Head of European Scouting: Henny de •Regt
Lead Scouts (Worldwide):
•America: Jorge Alvial, Mark Prizant
•Argentina (Academy): Juan Mauricio Echeverria
•Brazil (Academy - Sergio de Souza): Sandro Orlandelli
•Colombia: Giuseppe Antonaccio
•Japan: Kei Tamura
•Uruguay: Luciano Canepa
Lead Scouts (Europe):
•Austria: Armand Benneker
•Belgium: Roland Janssen
•Central/ Eastern Europe (Academy): Bernard Schuiteman, Radoslaw Kucharski
•England: Ronnie Cusick (North-West), •Mark Anderson (South England)
•France (Academy): Mathieu Seckinger
•Holland: Roy Beukenkamp
•Netherlands (Academy): Rene Moonen
•Portugal: Joao Ferreira (Academy - Vasco Noronha)
•Scandinavia: Tommy Moller Nielsen
•Spain: Gerardo Guzman
•Switzerland: Thomas Bormann
A few names have since departed and have been replaced by others, but I hope the above gives some of you a brief insight on how bad things had got when Fergie retired, structurally. And I believe with the our current squad and the youth that's coming through (tweet below), a Head Coach who has world class or potentially world class abilities, will get us to challenge for all and sundry IMO.
Tweet
— Twitter API (@user) date
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I had absolutely no interest in the match, but when it was reported that the rival "supporters" had clashed and were fighting, which was not unexpected, I hoped EUFA might cancel the match, play the final between the losing semi finalists and ban City and Chelsea for a few seasons.
The Champions League is much easier to win nowadays than it used to be anyway. No Real Madrid, Barcelona etc. forces in Europe. The Italian teams have been out of the mix for a while and are only just starting to become relevant again anyway. No real fan presence on stadiums for 2 years. Let Chelsea enjoy their shallow "Champions League" win.
No asking for much then fella
The thing about Chelsea is that with Mourninho and Teuchel, that both have a defensive philosophy. Park the bus, and then if they get up one they are very hard to beat. There's less variance in that and more consistency then say a Manchester City which can go 5-1 or lose 1-0.
I do however think in this game they lost the one person they couldn't afford to lose in De Bruyne (He's the one irreplacable guy on their loaded squad) and that was the difference.
If that critique of the current state of the Champions League is meant to demean Chelsea's win, then it's even more damning of our group stage exit this year.
I echo sentiments on here about the CL not being what it was. All the Italian clubs are shite. No one from France. Real and Barca in a bad patch. All others also rans. Its basically going to be British teams for a few years imo.
With regards last nights win, overheard a bloke in the street earlier today summarise last nights final and had to chuckle: ‘its one team in blue who’ve ruined football, against another team in blue who’ve ruined football, couldnt give a shit’. True. I didnt even bother watching the final this year
With regards last nights win, overheard a bloke in the street earlier today summarise last nights final and had to chuckle: ‘its one team in blue who’ve ruined football, against another team in blue who’ve ruined football, couldnt give a shit’. True. I didnt even bother watching the final this year
I know this is our go to statement regarding the likes of Chelsea and City but United fans have to understand no one gives a flying feck about this ffs.
It's the trophy cabinet that matters and if Chelsea/City keep winning, they will eventually have more fans than us.
Their win in 2012 was incredible, in that they seemed destined to win it regardless of how they performed. To be fair they were the best team in the competition this year, although they came up against a lot of relatively easy sides (in terms of performance).
Funnily enough, even though we clearly underperformed, ours is sometimes the opposite tale. In 97 we lost to Dortmund in a semi final after missing an incredible amount of chances (like honestly incredible), we lost to Leverkusen is a two legged tie we were the better side, we lost to Porto with a bullshit offside call, we lost to Bayern with a Robben wonder goal after dominating them over two legs (and a controversial Rafa red card), we lost to Real after Nanis controversial red card. All of this doesn't include either of the Barca finals where we deserved to lose. When you actually analyse our losses we were often the team that deserved to win the ties that we were knocked of from, whereas Chelsea won their first title without really 'deserving' it. This isn't an attack on Chelsea. Fair play to them but in cup competitions context is sometimes needed. If even half of those ties that i mentioned go our way then we could be on 4 or 5 titles but like in 99, when things didn't go Bayern's way (even though they deserved it) we have been quite unlucky at times whereas Chelsea have been relatively lucky.
For what its worth I think the 08 final was dead even (as were us and Chelsea then as shown by League points total) and probably deserved to be decided by a shootout which of course could have went Chelsea's way.
Funnily enough, even though we clearly underperformed, ours is sometimes the opposite tale. In 97 we lost to Dortmund in a semi final after missing an incredible amount of chances (like honestly incredible), we lost to Leverkusen is a two legged tie we were the better side, we lost to Porto with a bullshit offside call, we lost to Bayern with a Robben wonder goal after dominating them over two legs (and a controversial Rafa red card), we lost to Real after Nanis controversial red card. All of this doesn't include either of the Barca finals where we deserved to lose. When you actually analyse our losses we were often the team that deserved to win the ties that we were knocked of from, whereas Chelsea won their first title without really 'deserving' it. This isn't an attack on Chelsea. Fair play to them but in cup competitions context is sometimes needed. If even half of those ties that i mentioned go our way then we could be on 4 or 5 titles but like in 99, when things didn't go Bayern's way (even though they deserved it) we have been quite unlucky at times whereas Chelsea have been relatively lucky.
For what its worth I think the 08 final was dead even (as were us and Chelsea then as shown by League points total) and probably deserved to be decided by a shootout which of course could have went Chelsea's way.
John Terry banana peel.
That was an incredible game and both teams were so, so strong.
It's really depressing just how woeful we've been in the Champions League under every manager since Ferguson.
I dare say that our best performance came under Moyes, where we had an amazing Group Stage, and were relatively competitive despite being knocked out against Bayern. That being said, that team Moyes inherited still had plenty of experience a winning mentality from Ferguson.
Sh1te. No way should Chelsea have 2. Jammy bastards.
cry more
Viva John Terry
This is also true. It really was a bad exit for us.
Given that fans don't have 4B to spare and buy United, you are stuck with a Billionaire owning the club for the foreseeable future. Given that inevitability, yes, I prefer an owner that puts money into the club than one taking it out.
Chelsea will get to 3 CLs before we get to 4.
We wont will a domestic cup the way we are run let alone a European trophy
Yous winning the CL made this season less shit for me...erm so thanks
Especially when we had two game to get the point we needed, and after Ole said we wont go to Leipzig looking for a draw which is what he set us up for...and ultimately failed (again) to do
France only won UCL once. They were never a big consistent force in european football.
Don't bet on it. People have been saying that since ever, like when Liverpool won in 2019. Every time an english teams wins. But english teams haven't won the UCL two times in a row since early 80s. It's incredible how english fans never learn from the losses in Europe nearly every year, always being cocky when winning and seeing PL as the highest level of football. See how the users here treated Villarreal.
It's going to take a long while in our case. F.Perez was, and had been aggressive with building 2 Galaticos projects to chase La Decima. It finally paid off for him, but you can see it requires great ambition, which I don't see in the Glazers. We're passively just playing the waiting game for the next "great long term manager". It may take as long as the gap between Sir Matt Busby European victory and SAF's Treble, if not more, with our approach.
No. Unless Leicester are also the best team in Europe. Cup competitions don’t work that way
Ultimately I think we are going through our own long unsuccessful phase like Liverpool did, I hope its not 30 years until the next title
So with that way of thinking a team cannot declare they are the best in the World by winning a knock out competition and a team can only claim to be the best in their own country as they would have won their league over the course of the season
Right?
It was literally Chelsea getting 2 or City joining the club, so I feel great. feck City. They spent billions and thought they bought the CL too. Ha ha ha.
the three times united won, they were the best team in Eruope without a doubt. Dominated the competiton. Like the barcelonas and the milans and the early madrid titles.
Where as chelsea stumbled their way to a title. Nobody will remember their team or Zidans three peat team.
Where as chelsea stumbled their way to a title. Nobody will remember their team or Zidans three peat team.
Completely agree with this.I would any day prefer to see one of the london clubs win the CL than City or Liverpool...
Chelsea knows what it takes to win, and will do the necessary. They’re ruthless in their ways.
We settle for progression, hope for the eventuality.
We settle for progression, hope for the eventuality.
For me, purchased titles come with an asterisk. So do ones that are won when the team finishes 4th in their own league.
Chelsea have been a great cup team for a while now. Amazing they won something with Rudiger playing in the team, he must have really improved because I've seen him make a lot of mistakes.
Chelsea have been a great cup team for a while now. Amazing they won something with Rudiger playing in the team, he must have really improved because I've seen him make a lot of mistakes.
You know what, Utd are always beaten with the same stick of:
"You should have done better in Europe"
We never ever, get any credit for actually being the first to achieve things...
> 1st English team to win the European Cup
> 1st English team to win the Champions League
> 1st English team to win the most difficult treble there is
I can add even more...
> 1st English team to win the Premier League
> 1st English team to win the Club World Cup
We get slated constantly.
Yet we climbed EVERY MOUNTAIN before any other English team.
"You should have done better in Europe"
We never ever, get any credit for actually being the first to achieve things...
> 1st English team to win the European Cup
> 1st English team to win the Champions League
> 1st English team to win the most difficult treble there is
I can add even more...
> 1st English team to win the Premier League
> 1st English team to win the Club World Cup
We get slated constantly.
Yet we climbed EVERY MOUNTAIN before any other English team.
Chelsea are also 15 league titles behind us.