Looking Onward From the Bottom of A Pint

By: Taylor Rockwell | May 27th, 2009

To begin with, I watched today’s game at a local pub surrounded by my fellow United supporters. About sixty minutes in, they all (rather belligerently) began making their traditional excuses. We should have been playing Chelsea, Puyol is a crybaby, Messi used HGH… all nonsense and poor excuses for the truth: United were once again exposed as a team weaker than previously anticipated.

To be certain, Barcelona deserved this victory. They played excellent football, took their chances, and made “the greatest centerback pairing in history” look foolish multiple times. All credit to a classy squad and a classy manager in Pep Guardiola.

That said, I thought the United team on the pitch tonight was shocking, and it started with the lineup. Wayne and I agreed on what it would be, and we pretty much nailed it. However, the more I think about it, the more I realize that, for two major reasons, we were mildly doomed from the start.

Firstly, Daryl made an excellent point on The Offside frontpage. Whilst Barcelona were debating their midfield options, we were complaining about Darren Fletcher’s suspension. Fletcher has certainly come on this season, but would he ever see the pitch for a healthy Barcelona side? Probably not. United definitely have a wealth of riches on their roster, but I can’t say that, after tonight, our midfield leaves me feeling supremely confident for next season. Perhaps with a fully fit Hargo back, things will look different. But does one player with questionable knees make an entire unit look world class? Perhaps… if it’s Slave… but apparently he doesn’t play midfield anymore.

Which leads me to my second point. There has been something troubling me about the United squad of recent weeks and it came to me right around the time Slave hit his 5th shot wide in the opening 10 minutes: when did our once deadly winger start playing center forward? In our match preview comments, Wayne and I both agreed that there was no way Slave would be played out wide because Fergie wouldn’t risk him not tracking back. Let’s extrapolate that for a second. Essentially, one of the greatest managers of all time can’t get a player on his own squad to do that which is expected of him. So, instead, we sit a forward with debatable influence (Berbatov) and start a winger (albeit an incredibly talented winger with phenomenal ability) up top.

Hindsight is always 20-20, and I know that it’s foolish to second guess things that can’t really be changed… but screw it. I’m doing it anyway. If I gave you the following two lineups, which would you rather see United attack with: The one we went with tonight (Ando, Carrick, Giggs, Park, Rooney, and Slave) or one consisting Ronaldo, Carrick, Ando/Park in the midfield, Tevez and Rooney out wide, and Berba up top? Barcelona obviously isn’t Tottenham, but when we had the four headed monster pushing forward, we scored five goals in quick succession. Could the same lineup have changed the fate of United tonight? Maybe. Maybe not. But the fact remains that tonight we seem to have been hoisted by our own petard. Instead of playing free-flowing football, we panicked after an early goal and let Barca completely dominate.

So where do we go from here? Despite the result, United remain one of the top clubs in Europe… and, obviously, the world. However, I don’t think that we can afford to rest on our laurels. To assume that a healthy Wes Brown, a healthy Hargo, and another year for the kiddies (Macheda, Possebon, Rafael, et al) automatically means we’re in the running for our fourth straight EPL title would be a regrettable bit of arrogance. United ended up victorious in multiple competitions this season and were an impressive/entertaining side at times, but I think most would agree that they never looked completely confident from start to finish. Their run of clean sheets was amazing, but was often accentuated by a dearth in goals. Finishing the Premiership with 90 points was amazing, but taking only five points out of a possible eighteen against other Big Four opponents was not. Making it to the Champions League Final two years in a row was amazing, but looking impotent for large sections of the match was not.

Solidifying the roster with role players, bringing an end to the Tevez saga, dealing with the inevitable Slave situation, and deciding just what the 2009/2010 squad should look like are all big issues on the horizon. Dealing with them effectively and intelligently will keep United playing the kind of football we’ve come to expect from them. Failing to do so… well… that’s just not a viable option.

Some Related Man United Posts:

Category: Manchester United

« Congratulations To Barcelona | Home | Wow, I Thought I Was Disappointed »

Taylor Rockwell

I hope to discuss all of these issues in the livechat tomorrow afternoon... until then, I'll just say that whiskey figured prominently Wednesday evening...
miele

Forgive me Taylor, forgot to thank you on a very well written piece.

As cliche as it is, we have serious problems in the engine room, all options seem to be inconsistent. I am no SAF, but if this is not addressed soon, I fear our chances even in the domestic League.

How did everyone drown the collective sorrows? I partied like a proper demented Tevez.
miele

alright nando, but the question is, will there ever be a Premier League trophy won in your lifetime?
nando

although you weren't left with much choice, the others are right; you are suffering in a most mature fashion.....it is commendable.

however, with that said, did you know that ......

WE WON IT IN WEMBLEY
WE WON IT IN GAY PARIS
IN '77 and 84' IT WAS ROME
WE WON IT FIVE TIMES
WE WON IT FIVE TIIIIIIIIIIIMES
IN ISTANBUUULLLLL WE WON IT FIVE TIMES
nando

although you weren't left with much choice, the others are right; you are suffering in a most mature fashion.....it is commendable.

however, with that said, did you know that ......

WE WON IT IN WEBLEY
WE WON IT IN GAY PARIS
IN '77 and 84' IT WAS ROME
WE WON IT FIVE TIMES
WE WON IT FIVE TIIIIIIIIIIIMES
IN ISTANBUUULLLLL WE WON IT FIVE TIMES
Dhaw

The above bit was from the Guardian.
Dhaw

http://www.cnn.com/2009/SPORT/... Oh and I thought the problem was the rome police eh

---------

Whichever team you supported last night, Rome was indisputably a good venue for the Champions League football final between Barcelona and Manchester United. In fact, the choice of Rome was better than good. Two thousand years after Emperor Augustus, the idea that all roads in Europe lead ultimately to the Eternal City still has powerful symbolic resonance. Rome may no longer be the political - let alone artistic or spiritual - capital of Europe. Italy may not live up to the rose-tinted image in which too many insist on seeing it. Yet Italy's capital city retains a pan-European glamour and vibrancy that few cities - and certainly not the continent's dull political capital, Brussels - can rival. All of this made Rome the best possible venue for a contest which, pitting the pre-eminent football team of northern Europe against the pre-eminent team of the south, united and engaged the people of this continent in ways that next month's European elections cannot rival. The contrast with the 2008 final, played in Moscow and finishing at nearly 1am local time, was wholly to Rome's advantage. All of which raises the obvious question: why not make Rome's Stadio Olympico the permanent home of Europe's football cup final? In England, the FA Cup is always (after a brief exile in Cardiff) played at Wembley. In Scotland, a similar role is played by Hampden Park. A Champions League final played each May in Rome would soon have a similarly inevitable and irresistible aura.

Hmm and some of u here were moaning and crying regarding the choice of venue eh...
Tutomate

How do you guys feel about Mr. Slave saying he did not know wether he'd be there next season. Are you guys not fed up with him. Honestly ManU is getting to Big corthis chump. ManU is classy team with a lot of history that has made ronaldo into what he is he should a little more respect. He should also not be blaming Fergunsons tactics nor saying that Barça did not deserve to beat Chelsea.
Sarit

Without Queiroz that 4-6 formation with changing all the time just doesn't happen. Ferguson and Phelan have this year, made the team more one dimensional by initially trying to add a target man (Berbatov), playing Park a lot (He's good, but not that grand going forward) and letting Ronaldo hug the touchline rather than having him play as he did last year, which was basically more of a "get goals, however you want", or at least thats what it felt like.
el_horse

Whatever happened to the spaletti way of manu football? 4 players in front all changing positions all the time (ron, roon, tev, giggsy)? no real full-time forward just 4back 2def mid and then 121 rotating.

This won the champions league last year. Now it seems all position movement was gone...
matt

ronaldo can play wherever he wants as far as i'm concerned. he wasn't the problem last night. it's the midfield as you said. iniesta was good but i thought xavi was the one that torched us especially. carrick and ando definitely weren't up for it...neither were the old guys.
Isaiah

Hey, nice words, Taylor. It's always a question of what went wrong when a team loses, but you put up a fight and could have gone up 1-0 early on, it's just that sometimes it doesn't happen.

Both teams have fantastic talent and both will be in contention again next year, I'm sure. Barça are riding high on a once-a-generation wave of talent from La Masia (Xavi, Iniesta) and it's awesome, for me, to see that they're succeeding all over the world.

The class with which you've accepted this defeat is to be commended, lauded even. It's refreshing to see this and when we lose (and we will lose in the future), I hope I can approach defeat with such maturity.
A

I am a new to your pages (I frequent the Milan Offside) but would like to congratulate you on a an excellent piece of football writing. Very well said.

I do think however that you are overlooking the history leading to Ferguson's seeming caution in the business end of the CL. This was borne out of repeated failures in Europe trying to play too much free-flowing stuff and the reform has undoubtedly paid dividends.
M

(warning: this will be somewhat long, just feel the need to get these things off my chest :)

So much can be said: frustration that the formation was wrong, Rooney never looked happy playing wide and Slave should not have been playing up front; after conceding the first goal we looked like we had the souls sucked out of us and never recovered, and with the experience our team has we should not let confidence (or lack thereof) rule the game; we basically looked like we forgot how to play football.

I'm so gutted, mostly because we just didn't play like I know we can. And it's true that despite winning the League, United never really found their rhythm, although there were glimpses of it (Arsenal CL semi-final, etc.). My conclusions at the end of the night were: we were thoroughly outclassed by the better team last night who totally deserved to win, and I still love United.
aj

I was absolutely baffled when I saw that Ferguson decided to match up Park against Sylvinho. I figured he would want to test the 35 year old with some pace. Instead, Ferguson was counting on Ronaldo to score him a goal, which very well could have worked, but reminded me of the tactics of a youth team always kicking the ball to their best player.
Kasia

Credit for United for actually trying to play football, instead of parking a bus. It didn't go well for them, though.
Well, at least now you have the same number of EPL titles as Liverpool, right?
steven.

just have a big drink out of that EPL trophy, i'm sure it will dull the pain .. spit shine your black cloud ..
Pez

That's one of the better summaries I've read on United's situation. As far as the game went - yeah, United were beaten by a better team. Better skilled. Better on the ball. As far as the season went, winning the Premier League was, and always is, an outstanding effort. You can't take anything away from it. However, most United followers worth their salt could see that we lacked something in attack this season. Maybe it was cohesion. Maybe it was that dominance on the ball that we've seen before.

It's defintely not panic stations by any stretch - we are spoilt, we have a terrific squad, but we can't rest on what we have. I'll be very interested to see how Ferguson et al read the situation.
Colin

I am absoloutely gutted. Not much more to say. I don't want to make excuses, but I am not sure that was the best formation (obviously, we lost). Rooney's task was defending leaving Ronaldo as our only threat going forward. And he's a winger.

Basically, I am regurgitating the post, but I am just too crushed. Luckily we lost with some class and didn't blame the refs or slap anyone in the face.

We'll be back.
Wayne Farry

Heartbreaking, but such is life. We were outclassed tonight, which almost hurts more.

Dear Lord, I'm so sad...
Taylor Rockwell

You didn't know that when you're 10 pints deep, hindsight becomes 50-50? Once a bit of time passes it goes back to 20-20...
?

hindsight is 50-50?