Football (Soccer)

[Oriphus]

In fact, your forgetting two bits of individual play by Henry where he took the ball round a few and then failed to shoot with his left foot, and the one where he took it around two players and then shot into the side netting. Apart from that, i agree that Arsenal looked very poor.

I still wouldnt be worrying about it. You have virtually the same team this time a few months ago, and then you were looking amazing. If the players ahvent changed, then its not something to get anxious about. Look at United, we had a very poor start to the season, but that was because we had a lot of palyers out of the team. Once all were back we started to click. now we really seem to be clicking quite well.

Looking forward to the game tomorrow, should be reserve teams from both sides. Id probably give it to Arsenal, mainly because their reserve team is generally pretty strong, but some United players have a point to prove. I think you will see the likes of Wes Brown, O'Shea, Fortune, Djemba Djemba, Kleberson, Fletcher, P. Neville, Bellion, Smith....or something along those lines. A few premiership teams would love to have a first team out like that, let alone a reserve side lol...

[admin]

Henry is Henry, even when he is injured as he says he is right now, he is still a great player. The second half was better as well, but the first half was horrible. The team knows they are not playing well - they even had a emergency meeting at half time to determine what was going on, and why they were completely outplayed by Liverpool. I think the thing we need right now is to play some team (any team) and beat them 3-0 or 4-0. Even a hard fought 0-0 would be welcomed at this stage.

As for the match on Wed, I think Man United are slight favourites because you will have more experience in your team (apart from the goalkeeper, we will be fielding an under-21 team) and you're playing at home. It's a big chance for the young players to impress, but it's also a big test to see if they can beat a big team away from home.

[Oriphus]

lol "Apart from the goalkeeper"

Haha - im afraid thats a bit of a stinger for you. The match wasnt anything special. In fact, although we had the more chances and more shots/cormers/attempts, Arsenal had a slight advantage in possession. We had 7 shots, 4 of them on target. Arsenal only managed 1 shot and it was on target.

Now, to me that doesnt just suggest that Arsenal were not as strong a side as UNited, ok they werent. But what really showed today was that how good our defense was, and how well they played together.

I think its fair to say that our back four was virtually a reserve team. Ok, Phil Neville sometimes makes an appearance in the 1st team, in fact he is a fully fledged first team player. John O'Shea was last year. Wes Brown and Quinton Fortune are both excellent and 1st team material. But it has to be said, they are second choice this year in our squad considering we have Gary Neville, Silvestre, Ferdinand and Heinze. All-in-all it was a defense that most premiership teams would love to have. That said, it was certainly a stronger defence than Arsenal's, though they had some great players too.

I think v.Persie was very poor for the most of that game. He started to come into it a bit nearer the middle of the second half. However, i think his conduct was pretty disgraceful. So many of his tackles looked malicious, and to be honest, he shouldve been sent off probably - he was lucky.

I was hoping that we would get a better chance to see young Rossi and Lupoli a bit more. Both were Parma starlets and both know each other very well. Lupoli got a better chance with Arsenal than Rossi did with United, maybe its because Lupoli is a year older i think. I was really hoping to see more of Rossi, because ive watched him in Reserves games and he really is amazing when it comes to vision.

Ok, rambling on a bit. Back to the match. Man Utd completely controlled their defensive areas of the pitch. No one managed to break through it virtually and it held solid. Liam Miller was impressive in the midfield. Some of his tackles and style of play reminded me a lot of Roy Keane, so maybe someday if he improves a lot, he might just be our answer to keane. Arsenal played better football in the midfield i felt. Their passing wasnt great, but neither was ours. I think the result was a fair one. We deserved on the performance and chances created i think. Ok, the goal wasnt spectacular, but i think we wouldve won anyway hadnt that error been made. Thats football i guess though.....

Arsenal can concentrate on the premiership and Europe now lol.

[admin]

I can't see the game, so I really don't have any idea what happened. From what I read, it was an early goal from an Arsenal slip-up, and then greater possesion by Arsenal in the second half, some fighting between van Persie and someone, and that was it. Overall, our team didn't play as well as we did before, but you lot weren't much better either.

In the end, it was literally men against boys, and the men only won by a lucky goal. It was the Man United first team subs (plus some youth) versus the Arsenal under 21 team, at your home, so that's why I said you were slight favourites in my last post, and the game turned out to be in slight favour of Man United. This was always a gamble to see how far our youth players can go, and I think they've passed that test. Come January when the FA Cup starts, I can see most of these players having a good run in the competition.

Arsenal's average age, even with the Goalkeeper, was 19. Man United's average age was 23.5. Take out the two oldest players from both team, Arsenal's average age drops down to 18 and United is 21, the age of our oldest outfield player today. You only had 2 under-21 players out there today.

We have lots of injuries at the moment as well, all to reserve type players that would have started this game: Cygan, Gilberto, Edu, Bergkamp, Aliadiere. Clichy and Ryan Smith who both played today have only come back from injury, today was Clichy's first game in months, so they are not really fresh.

I think given these facts, we played a pretty good game. It also shows our direction for the future versus yours. If the players you had on today are replacements for the older regular starters on your team, then by the time your older players retire, their replacements would be 26 to 28 years old. If a player is 26/28 and still waiting for a first team place, then they're probably not that good. And if they are good, they will probably want to leave for better chances elsewhere. With our very young "reserves", they are much more willing to stay and fight for a place, since they know time is on their hands. We released Kanu, Wiltord and Parlour for precisely this reason - to give the youth more hope of getting a chance because Wenger knows they are good enough.

Of course, you could just buy players with big money, but with Chelsea competing with your for good signings (Robben, Duff, for example), it will be tough for you to find good replacements.

Today's game showed that our young reserves are at least at the same technical level as your older reserves, and we are capable of playing much better as well. I doubt the team you put out today would have beaten Everton or Man City, although I admit we were a bit lucky in those games. I think we already have a youth team capable of winning trophies once we move into Ashburton Grove, and by then, we will have the money to buy big as well in case the youth doesn't work out.

[Oriphus]

Arsenal game tonight - im looking forward to it

I'll comment more after the game - was away there for a bit so havent really had much to chat about - except all of the top 4 won at the weekend....

[Oriphus]

Very poor performance by United reserves tonight. I think David Bellion, as usual, was absolutely useless. He does the same thing every single time and every single time he messes it up. I don't honestly know why we keep playing him - its Diego Forlan all over again.....

The team as a whole was very poor. It was nice to see some of the young lads like Eagles, Spector and Pique getting a game for United in the Champions League. Fergie, although we had qualified, has made a big mistake in my opinion by playing such a weakened side. We had Phil Neville, Wes Brown, John O'Shea and Quinton Fortune in the back line, was should normally be strong enough. However, we had nothing going up front at all in my opinion. We wouldve been far better with Alan Smith or someone up there competing and winning the ball, instead of Bellion always running offside and losing the ball.

Its a disappointing result, finishing top i think shouldve been the priority. Maybe we'll get Chelsea now to knock out in the next round lol

[admin]

I would say it's a lot harder for Manchester United to finish top of the group (needing to travel to Turkey and match Lyon's result) than it is for Arsenal to qualify. We'll even finish top of the group if PSV lose (a highly determined Greek side that has to win versus a side that has already qualified) and we win.

I got it right this time. I predict a 28-0 drubbing of Chelsea on the weekend then...

Also turns out we were the only English team to go unbeaten in the CL - who would have thought it.

What I don't really understand is why United weren't going for the top spot in the group? I would have though it to be important to do so, as you can avoid teams like Juve, the two Milan sides. I don't think you have a big match this weekend (at least not as big as ours), so why rest all the players. You won't get Chelsea though, I think, because team from the same country can't be paired up in the first knock out phase. Actually come to think of it, finishing second in the group isn't too bad, as you'll avoid teams like Barcelona, Real Madrid and Bayern. With our luck, we'll get Barcelona, although I wish we can get Real Madrid (Arsenal have never played them, I think).

[admin]

So Chelsea fail to beat us once again...

We were quite a depleted team, with a new goalkeeper, no experience central midfield and the loss of an in form player in Ljungberg. The lack of strong defensive mids really showed in the goals we conceded - Vieira or Gilberto would usually be the ones marking Lampard (who managed to stay unmarked for 2 or 3 corners) and Terry. We also could have (or maybe should have) won the game, with Henry's terrible miss (but I think it's a bit harsh to criticize someone for not scoring a hattrick against Chelsea) and a clear penalty against Flamini not given. Chelsea also had chances to win the game, like Robben's run into the box (good keeping there though), but we also had a few near misses too. Overall, Chelsea are a beatable team, and if we had experienced defensive mids playing today we might have won it. This tells me Chelsea will lose games, most likely in the colder months, and that's when we can take advantage.

I guess in the end this result only benefits Manchester United and Everton (!), but United will have to take advantage of it first.

[Oriphus]

What I don't really understand is why United weren't going for the top spot in the group?

Yeah, I completely agree with you. I think it shouldve been a definite strong side that we played - Alex made a mistake there in my opinion.

but United will have to take advantage of it first

We sure do lol. It was a great result the Arsenal v Chelsea match. I didnt see it, but from reading your post, its sounds like u were unlucky not to win. Im eagerly anticipating the Fulham match which starts in just inder the hour lol.

Another win for Real Betis, we are doing wuite well. Big match this weekend with the Seville derby on Sunday....

[admin]

It turns out Henry's "miss" wasn't really a miss, as the offside flag had already gone up. Strange that no one mentioned it, and instead blames Henry for not winning the game for us - it's almost as if the media want to find reasons to slag off Henry.

[Oriphus]

Yeah - it seems Arsenal are surprised about Henry not winning player of the year. To be honest, i was expecting Ronaldinho to win it anyway.

Very disappointed with United v Fulham. We played so well in the fist half and shouldve been 3-0 ahead. Hit the post twice, once from Keane and once from Rooney inside a 5 mins spell with Scholes blasting just over a few times.

[admin]

The award that Shevchenko won was the European award, so I guess it looks at all the Euro competitions (CL, Euro 2004), in which Ronaldinho didn't do much or wasn't eligible. But then again, Shevchenko hasn't done anything special in the last season either (although what he does from game to game is already quite special), and Deco's inclusion is very questionable. Remember that Henry is the Champions League's all time fourth top scorer (despite Arsenal never progressing beyond the quarter finals, and basically crap most of the time), and only Shevchenko in the award list has scored more than him, and only because he scored 10 goals in the qualifying round, which Arsenal never needs to play in. And in the award list, none of the players scored more goals than Henry at Euro 2004. Henry also won the European golden boot award last season, so they can't say he didn't score enough goals.

If you look at the domestic league situation, Henry has an even better record in terms of assists.

But I guess goals scoring and goal providing aren't important when judging striker/forwards.

As for Fulham-ManU, I didn't watch the game, but it looks like luck isn't on your side this season. I think you've dominated many games which you didn't win, and also conceded some last minute equalisers as well. So I guess Everton were the only team to benefit this weekend - all they need is 3 more points to match their last season's total!!

[admin]

My pseudo random draw for the Champions League:

Lyon - Liverpool
Arsenal - Real Madrid
Bayer Leverkusen - Barcelona
Juventus - PSV
Monaco - Bayern Munich
AC Milan - FC Porto
Chelsea - Werder Bremen
Inter Milan - Man Utd

Not surprised that we get/will get Real Madrid though.

[admin]

I was way off then - the real draw:

Real Madrid v Juventus
FC Porto v Inter Milan
Barcelona v Chelsea
Werder Bremen v Lyon
Liverpool v Bayer Leverkusen
PSV v Monaco
Manchester United v AC Milan
Bayern Munich v Arsenal

Chelsea and Man United have very tough draws. And it's Lehmann against Kahn for us - could turn out to be a battle to the death

[Oriphus]

I think at this stage of the tournament all of the draws are pretty tough. Its time to sort the real teams from the wannabee's. I just hope we're not a wannabee team lol. Ok, we won 5-2 today, but we still conceded 2 goals, which i don't think we should be conceding. I am looking forward to the continuence of the CL - My predictions for the final 8 are:

Man Utd
Real Madrid
Inter Milan
Barcelona
Lyon
Monaco
Bayern Munich
Bayer Leverkusen