Alert: CL Round of 16. Real Madrid v. Manchester United, Wednesday, February 13th [R]

Guys, as shown from last night, not only is Ramos a big diving baby and a cheat, he is pure crap, was at fault for Welbeck's goal and has the pace of a turtle.

 

BTW, this is easily the longest match thread we've had for at least 2 years here, and mostly good discussion too.

 

Putting it being an obviously big game aside for a sec, I do think that starting the thread early helped. That's something we should maybe look into in the future. We've become very lazy in getting the match threads started (I'm as guilty as anyone).

 

credit to pgr17 for starting every match thread.

 

Start the Reading thread ?

 

Was thinking the same thing.

Co-sign.



As for the return leg. I think it was stud who said we score on 9% of our corners, is there a break down for left vs right? I feel like one thing that would have helped us yesterday was balance. It felt like most of our corners and attacks came down the left. Given the way Madrid attack, having threats on both sides of the pitch is going to be useful. 1 v 1, their defenders had nothing for RvP or Welbeck and the more we spread them out, the better.

 

Yeah, oddly enough found it on Man City news blog of all places: http://www.bitterandblue.com/2012/12/27/3806536/goals-from-corners-in-the-pl-19-games

 

The perfect response from United fans is "Then what does that make you?" There's no counter point that they can make.

 

Just out of curiosity, what combination of results over the upcoming two Clasicos do you all think benefits you the most against Real Madrid in the second leg? It will be fascinating to see how this all unfolds.

 

Ronaldo missing would be a start

 

I don't expect RM to take the second Clasico seriously.

 

I'm not really bothered by the specifics. If Madrid were in a close tie and had some extra time to play just days before our match, I'd be happy about that. The 2 players who can make our lives quite difficult imo are Oezil and Khedira. By that I mean, the two players who we can actually do something about. If they in particular are tired, it will be very hard for Madrid to best us away from home.

One is the 'glue' type player who combines good technique with tireless work-rate and the other is the creative outlet of the team. If they both have stinkers, it will take an absolute monster of a game from Ronaldo to beat us... and you cannot plan against that anyway.

 

They certainly don't want to be embarrassed at home right before they head over to Manchester though. That being said, if we eliminate them in the Copa, I can see them almost throwing the league Clasico away so they can focus everything on the CL. That would be the smart thing to do in that situation.

 

Think Barca giving them a rollicking in the Del Rey would be good. Then they would have to risk another one in the 2nd game if they rest players.

Would have been better if the 2 matches were the other way round though. Guess, Barca wearing them out badly would be good.

 

Very happy with the game.

Some of the post match commentary is bizzare. Bookies in Australia had us at 5:1 for a win, 4:1 for a draw. Everyone expected us to get annihilated.

Credit to Fergie for getting it mostly right, and to DDG, Danny and others for some great performances.

Hopefully we can close at the tie at home.

 

You forgot one man team. Be that man Ronaldo, be that man Rooney, be that man Vidic (yep, I've heard it a few times!), be that man RVP... christ, in this game even be that man De Gea... we are a one man team.

And don't you forget it!

 

Who are these people hating on United exactly?

 

Yes we are unfortunately for our rivals that one man has been SAF.

 

what an amazing performance. i hoped for it but didnt expect it. we can still come unstuck but there is great reasons for positivity. pity rvp didnt give us a win at the sb, maybe next year. we were long long long odds to win and so nearly managed it. they have spent and spent in recent years, i cant even guess what they have spent over the last 6 years, in ronaldo, kaka, di maria, ramos, higuain, pepe, benzema, ozil, khedira, the diarras, alonso, marcelo, sneider, vdv, coentrao, modric, sahin, altintop, adebayor, carvalo, leon, albiol, ruud, huntelaar, garay, hienze, robben and about a hundred others, but i bet its well over half a billions pounds. if ronaldo had still been on our side it could have been a cricket scoreline, we would certainly be in the next round by now. we have them in their 3rd away game out of the next 4 games, having travelled to coruna in the north and barcelona and then on to machester, hopfully battered, bruised, demoralised and knackered, where they will hopefully be greeted by a pack of braying wolves thirsty for blood.