Champions League Preview: A good time for some home cookin’

It was obvious to all watching the first leg that Barcelona dominated possession. They had 42' 39'' of ball possession compared to just 26' 10'' for Man Utd, possessing the ball for 61% of the time to Man Utd's 39%. The home team stacked up 16 shots, 8 on target, compared to the away team's 5 shots, 1 on target. And to all those saying Barcelona did not have any great chances, you are wrong. Samuel Eto'o missed a very good opportunity and later stayed on his feet when falling would have surely won his team a penalty, plus his team had plenty of free-kicks in very dangerous positions.
There are a number of approaches to taking on Barcelona, two of which revolve around Xavi: one is to attempt to prevent him from getting on the ball, leaving other areas open; another is to let him have the ball but limit his passing options by shutting down wing play and Deco in the attacking central role. The other options, which are too risky, are to play like Man Utd did in the first leg and keep 8 defenders on the field while letting Barcelona dominate possession or to attack them and have an end to end game, which again is too risky.
The approach to Xavi is the key. I think a better approach than packing the centre is to prevent passing options, something Schalke did, thus letting Barcelona have slightly more possession but removing their domination of possession and the effectiveness of this. Is this not packing the defence? No because it gives you more possession than you would otherwise have to place Barcelona under pressure, thus giving you more time to expose their defensive weaknesses, something Man Utd can do probably better than any other team in the world. Why is this better than preventing Xavi from getting the ball? Schalke showed one can have possession against Barcelona. Why take a risk against something that has worked? Imitate Schalke's style - Man Utd have a much better attack than Schalke so them having similar possession to Schalke will translate into much more than what Schalke achieved.
Will Man Utd follow this strategy? It means a lot of clever patience for the central midfield, back-tracking for the left midfielder (Park) and heavy running for the full-backs, especially Evra. Let us see on Tuesday night.
HU
soccerstatistics.blogspot.com

“We should be sitting here as champions of the league at this moment in time. We have had bad decisions against us,” Ferguson said Monday as he maintained United’s hard luck story."

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God, you have the richest club in the world, you can buy (and often do) any player you can imagine and have dominated the last 15 years or so in the league. And still, bitching. Amazing club you cheer for.