The Husband was originally planning to post something triumphalist I believe but one look at him slumped in the chair with the look of a stunned disbelief on his face tells me I had better post instead....
Man Utd got their asses handed to them tonight ion a Milan that more resembled Manchester thro the rain or was that tears from the Manyoo fans. Whilst it was a poor display from Man Utd and Milan deserve to go through it has to be said that they were helped by some dodgy defending by one of the most consistent performers in Heinze, when he could have cleared he passed and then Brown slipped leading to the second goal courtesy of a lucky ricochet to Seedorf.It was one of those games where nothing seemed to go right and they could be playing still next week and Man Utd would not score.
One interesting stat was that not one Milan player was on a yellow from the first game whereas Scholes, Ronaldo and Heinze were and you could sense that depite the pre-match words there was some trepidation there. Personally I find that incredible given the tackles Gattuso puts in but he seems to be able to get away with tackles that others such as Scholes regularly get booked for.
I must admit that one point it seemed that every decision was going Milans way and over the last few matches it must be said that Milan have benefited from some shall we say generous refereeing, the phantom penalty against Bayern readily springs to mind and tonight the rather blatant push on Rooney when he was in mid air that went unpunished only for seconds later when Pirlo tripped over his hair a free kick was awarded. English clubs remain in my opinion more naive than Italian and Spanish clubs in ref manipulation and Milan gave a master class in frustrating the opposition. Every time Ronaldo or Scholes got the ball in the first 20 minutes they were flattened by a different Milan player which never allowed Man Utd to get into a rhythm, although I'm not sure it would have made much difference if they did.
Anyway it was infinitely better than Tuesday nights tosh and although Man U did not make many chances they played some football at least.
Must be emabarrasing for UEFA though to have a club found guilty of match fixing and referee pressuring to be in the Chimps League final and you really do have to ask whether they are there on merit or whether there is any slightly dodgy stuff going?
Whatever all we can do now is hope that Liverpool repeat Istanbul in Athens......
2 comments:
Yes, Gulay, I take your comments with `Ingallish Eyes` and can appreciate your frustration.
However, with typical unbiased `Jock Eyes`, there was only one team there last night that WANTED to win and were determined to win.
Milan reminded me of the CimBom team which surprised Arsenal in the UEFA Cup Final back in 2000. They chased everything and looked up for it.
ManYoo on the other hand looked like a team of sad old men. I am really surprised that Sir Alex didn't replace Old Giggsie and Old Scholes at half time - they contributed absolutely bugger all !!
I hope Mr Benitiz studies the recording of that match in great detail, because on that performance last night, Liverpool will have to perform above themselves if they are to beat Milan.
PS..... Gecmisolsen Husband !!!
I agree, Milan wanted it a lot more than Man Utd which is a surprise given the way Man U have played the last few weeks, maybe all those efforts to keep ahead of Chavski and come from behind last week and then at Everton and with the injuries reducing the first team squad to 14 finally took its toll. It was clear Vidic was nowhere near fit, normally he would have been all over Kaka but could not get close to him last night. Start of the second half Utd were better and Scholes was more in the game but the biggest factor I think was the absence of both Neville and Evra and especially Evra. His speed forces the opposition full backs to be more nervous about coming forward and last night Utd had no real speed at full back allowing Milan to press high up the pitch. Neville is not as fast as Evra but he is a very underestimated part of Utd's attacking play. His overlapping runs, work rate and crosses that he bends in behind the defence have been badly missed over the last few weeks. ON the night Milan certainly deserved it but it still rankles and as I said how Gattuso avoids yellow and red cards is an absolute mystery to me.
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