CL L Champions League Quarter-Final 1st Leg

Manchester United 0:1 Barcelona

Post-match discussion


Wed, 10 April 2019

I thought Barcelona were very poor, they can be got at particularly away from home (they're contenders because they have Messi but City and Liverpool are more coherent units), but the limitations of our team got exposed because we were toothless despite being competitive. His subs were odd but I think overall Solskjaer did well to ensure that we were in that game until the end.

It's incredible that people think we don't need structural changes when you consider that we've spent £700m since Ferguson left, barely recouping anything because of poor coaching meaning players bought have gone backwards and putting players on so much money that we can't get anyone to buy them, that in a Champions League quarter final against a giant of European football (we've fallen way off that level) we have so many subpar players playing.
 
Rashford and Young aside everyone played pretty well. We didn't let Barca create much and our midfield were very comfortable. Tie isn't over by any means, it just takes one error, one moment of magic to score one.
 
5 Champions League home games. 3 defeats. 1 goal.
 
Fred playing like that makes Herrera expendable. He was fantastic tonight. McT as well. I thought Pogba was fine, not good or bad, but Barca wasn't going to let him dictate the outcome. Young and Rashford completely let us down though. The former needs to never play again, while Rash was just dreadful in pretty much everything he did besides that cross. Thought he should have come off instead of Lukaku.

Still... very proud of how we asserted ourselves on the game. Gives me much more hope for next season compared to the PSG result at home.
 
Strategically Ole set the team in the best possible way. We started a touch slow until we grew into the game. We pressed them well and barely gave them any chances apart from that shot from Coutinho.

It's quite unfortunate we lost. But the truth is we don't have all the tools to pull it off against one of the best teams in the world. I said it earlier - swap Young for prime Alves, Fred for prime Busquets/Xabi Alonso and Lukaku for someone of the
Griezmann or Benzema mold.

It is quite clear the state of our club - 5 years of wondering in the wilderness, no clear idea of where the team needs to go, just blindly following the next appointed manager and the team we end up with is lacking the tools to pull off a very smart strategic set up.

We missed Hererra or Matic today. Someone to slot in Fred's place, because the Brazilian lad simply doesn't not posess the quality the job requires. Young is probably scratching lottery tickets day and night not being able to believe his luck for getting another
year in a red shirt.

The game finished when Lingard walked on to the pitch. We didn't have the required personel to keep the system until the last minute and as soon as we changed formation the game finished. Barca were happy to finish the game as it is and we didn't stand a chance with the players up front - a lot of potential, but non of our attackers are the complete article, including Lukaku, who was punching above his weight the entire time he was on the field.

I hope we give a good go at the Nou Camp, but Barca are far above PSG and I doubt we'll be able to pull another miracle.

Above all I am really happy the way we played and I'll chose today's performance vs Barca compared to any 1:0 win we achieved with JoseM.
 
Good performance..

DDG distribution was much better today and some crucial saves. Centre back pairing not bad defensively but Smalling a donkey in possession. Shaw poor for the goal and generally medicore in possession. McTominay was brilliant and so was Fred (said it from day dot he needs time and I think he will eventually come good). Lukaku decent hold up but lacks elite level quality for me.

Young, Rashford and Pogba... fecking useless. The first two should not be first team regulars for United end of and the third, he's pissing me off with his lackadaisical decision making.
 
Last third was really poor. There were opportunities but we never took the chance to make something off it. Scotty and Fred was brilliant tonight. Think that’s the end of Ashley young. Don’t think he’ll play much next season, bit part only.

Barca didn’t really do much and lucks gone against us with the goal in my opinion.

Can we get a result at the Nou Camp...possible...hopeful.

Onwards and upwards.
 
They look better but I think we did a decent job of containing them, the goal we conceded was unlucky. Lacked some precision and quality in the decision making going forward. I thought Fred and McTominay both looked good.

Baffled by some of the rampant negativity on here.
 
Lack of final ball was a joke, Mct showed more composure under severe pressure than rashford + lukaku did combined under no pressure.

Young........go home ffs killed nearly every attack we had down his side.
 
We snatched at our chances. Dalot and Rashford had the two best chances in the game but could notkeep their heads.
 
Was a cowardly performance. Don't know why some people were happy with it but it was far from good. Expected a humiliation maybe? We were too scared of them & they were too comfortable nearly all game. We started to play with a bit more courage but didn't really produce any real chance.

I love Ole but i'm sorry, from the tactical point of view he's still a 'rookie'. Wtf was he thinking about Dalot on the left? Doubling up on Messi? And what about starting Lukaku the big oaf ahead of Martial? :wenger:

In terms of individual performances, apart from McTominay(MOTM for me) and Fred no one can be satisfied with his performance. Young was awful but i feel people are looking to scapegoating him. Lindelöf wasn't better than him if not worse. De Gea, Smalling and Shaw looked shaky. Pogba'd be a great final piece in a winning team but we're not and his constant holding onto the ball needlessly & showboating are hurting us. Lukaku was useless as always & Rashford was also far from his best.

In the end, the result is not so bad but in terms of individual quality and coaching we're miles behind from the top. We already knew that and got past PSG not because we were the better team but with the belief we've got. Don't know if it'll happen again but we need that mentality at the Nou Camp to have any chance to go through.
 
Although we didn’t create much, we were completely hamstrung by a completely incompetent referee. VAR as useful as a chocolate fire guard too.
 
I fear our players will think they did their great today, it was a great effort, time for rest til the end of the season
 
Could have been a lot worse but the difference in quality was obvious. We can't fault the effort but we're just not good enough.

McTominay was our best player.
 
Good game by us. Ole's tactics were good, only thing was him subbing Dalot.

Otherwise, couldn't decide between McT and Fred for MOTM. Gave it McT - those two were immense.

Other than the lack of composure in the final third, I thought we gave a good account of ourselves much to my surprise. We haven't played well for a while but today was good to see.

Young needs to be bundled out of OT never to return.
 
Thought we played well in general, unlucky to have lost. Poor in the final 3rd though. Very clear we need a world class attacking player. Spending 90m on the likes of Lukaku is a total waste
 
Stonewall penalty at the end I reckon. Amazed var didn't give it, what the hell was Vidal thinking btw?
 
I tend not to criticise Young too much as he always applies himself well, but tonight his quality was atrocious.

I'm not sure if Barca were allowing him to have the ball because he was so shite, but had he put a bit of quality on just one fvcking pass/cross we could have got something.

Sadly, two of our best crosses came after Lukaku had left the field.
 
A lot of the lads did well tonight, sadly the ones that didn’t were either bang average (Pogba), woeful (Rashford) or even worse called Ashley Young.

On the plus side we didn’t embarrass ourselves but our cautious approach probably did that for us and, was also the reason we never really looked like scoring.
 
It drives me crazy to lose against this Barcelona, no guts, nothing, we should never have had to suffer like that. And Rashford is fit? Really? Then why couldn't he take the ball that Pogba passed early? The normal Rashford gets it and passes Ter Stegen to score, no problem!
 
Typical home performance these days if we're being honest but we are a better away side than home and this Brca side are too one paced to scare me.
See you in Spain, we have more than a chance here.

We do have a chance, but we need to start scoring goals again. Against Wolves and Arsenal we missed far too many chances. Today we could not end our attacks well at all.
Hopefully we can beat a poor West Ham and bring some confidence back to our strikers.

The biggest difference between us and Barca is our attacks. In midfield and defense we are as strong as them pretty much.
 
They were there to be got at. Seriously disappointing result.
 
Busquets should have had 4 yellows or so?
Young should never have played.
Martial should have started over Lukaku.

Overall for me:
Fantastic: Fred & McTominay
Good: De Gea, Lindelöf, Shaw, Pogba & Smalling
Meh: The rest.
Bad: Young & Lukaku (not really down to Lukaku himself)
 
We just weren't good enough, the approach, attitude and work rate were all good, barring the first ten or so minutes, but when we really needed some quality with a final pass or shot it just wasn't there unfortunately. Ter Stegen had a very quiet night.
 
Rashford Lukaku Young were useless. If we had better front 3, we could've easily scored 2.
McTominay's proved me wrong. It was unbelievable performance from the lad
 
Brave performance but our lack of cutting edge quality showed despite a big effort from the boys.

It’s clear that young is nowhere near good enough and we also need a RW.

Summer positions needs in order of priority are:

RB - ?
RW - ?
CM - ?
CB - ?

Probably going to be a lot of people moaning about the performance but I think you’ve got to remember we do have all of average players
 
McTominey and Fred....take a bow son (s)

Smalling tidy enough, but why did he not go down when Vidal jumped into him at the end, would have been a stonewall penalty

Pogba anonymous yet again, take the money and cash in on him, waste of a wage

Rashford atrocious

Ashley Young with the worst performance I think I’ve seen in many years

But...Still we’re still in it
 
Fred looks different player in Europe, Hopefully he can bring that to Premier league next season. Other that Mctominay and Smalling had great games. Playing majority of game with 2 technically limited forwards didn't help. Overall good performance and has given a belief that result might be possible at Camp Nou.
 
Was a good indicator of where we're at.
Clearly not at their level but also not as bad as some would have you believe Couple of players and a pre season with Ole and we could challenge.

On tonight specifically, we were far too passive for the opening 20 minutes and practically invited them to score, was very disappointing because as soon as we started getting stuck in we showed we can trouble them. Poor final ball let us down all night, frustrating

Was perhaps Fred and McTominays best game for us and aggressive smalling is the best smalling.

We're still in the tie but the level of cheating we'll face out there and the indulgence they'll get from the ref makes it near impossible but at least under Ole we know we'll give it a go - we've climbed mountains before after all :)
 
Not a bad result but I actually think that was pretty bad if you look at the context of the game. There were periods where they sat too deep and gave us loads of space in midfield but we had no idea what to do going forward.

Still don't think Ole's cracked the formula at home.
 

Man of the Match

Scott McTominay image Scott McTominay 66% of 620 votes

Runners-up

Player Ratings

5.4 Total Average Rating

Highest Rated Player

Lowest Rated Player

Compiled from 469 ratings.

Score Predictions

211,278,85
  • Man Utd win
  • Barcelona win
  • Draw

Detailed Results

  • 12% Man Utd 2:1 Barcelona
  • 12% Man Utd 1:3 Barcelona
  • 11% Man Utd 0:2 Barcelona
  • 8% Man Utd 0:3 Barcelona
  • 8% Man Utd 1:1 Barcelona
  • 7% Man Utd 1:0 Barcelona
  • 7% Man Utd 1:2 Barcelona
  • 6% Man Utd 2:0 Barcelona
  • 5% Man Utd 5:0 Barcelona
  • 4% Man Utd 2:2 Barcelona
  • 4% Man Utd 0:4 Barcelona
  • 3% Man Utd 3:1 Barcelona
  • 3% Man Utd 0:5 Barcelona
  • 3% Man Utd 0:0 Barcelona
  • 2% Man Utd 3:0 Barcelona
  • 2% Man Utd 1:4 Barcelona
  • 1% Man Utd 0:1 Barcelona
  • 1% Man Utd 4:0 Barcelona
  • 1% Man Utd 3:2 Barcelona
  • 0% Man Utd 3:3 Barcelona
  • 0% Man Utd 2:3 Barcelona
  • 0% Man Utd 1:5 Barcelona
Compiled from 574 predictions.
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Match Stats

  1. Man Utd
  2. Barcelona
Possession
34% 66%
Shots
10 6
Shots on Target
0 3
Corners
2 4
Fouls
16 11

Referee

Gianluca Rocchi