On the other hand, another poster came up with the analogy that Jose's tactics are right (which I agree with). It's the equivalent of a boxer stopping his opponent from hitting him. 'Boo!' go the opposition, as they scream that the fight is boring because someone is not getting the shit kicked out of them. However, if you're supporting the boxer and he's one step away from claiming the heavy weight title and he's also put on a good show for nearly all the rest of the boxing season then you're more willing to see him claim it than get KO'd by doing a silly move on the opponent and leaving yourself wide open to be attacked. 'Boo!' continue the opposition but Jose still claims the title. In fact, he's done it with Porto, dragging an average team to the pinnacle of European football, many cups and 2 (soon to be 3) titles with us and dragged an old and dying Inter team to a treble which I believe was the first Italian football has seen. Grass is always greener syndrome hits again. Ancelotti was on the verge of being sacked just a month ago, nearly got dumped out of the CL by Schalke (and Real ended up doing Jose style damage limitation in the return leg anyway) and are now on course to winning the square root of fuck all, which all adds up to Ancelotti being sacked. So much so that Bale (the fall guy here) is being attacked after every draw they get, sometimes even a win just because he didn't pass to Ronaldo. So that rules them out as a success story. Let's move on to Barcelona. In December and January Messi seemed like he was leaving, the board was lamenting the sale of Cesc Fabregas to us, and considering sacking Enrique. They were losing games and they were attempting to play their best football despite £500m of players on the bench. David Moyes' Real Sociedad beat them 1-0. The ONLY reason Barca do so well is because they have so much depth in so many postions, which we cannot yet match. Barcelona's team post 2000 has never needed regeneration because a) their academy, which we are working on replicating, and b ) their dodgy dealings in young players, which earned them a transfer ban. That and the fact that Barcelona can afford to have a front 3 of Suarez, Messi, and Neymar. Therefore ATM we are not going to be able to match this until we bring in more players, which brings me on to c) they simply have so much money that they will never have to worry who they buy - we cannot currently match this because of the size of our stadium. This is the model we're aiming towards. So, that leaves the final European powerhouse - Bayern. Now, everything seemed all fine and dandy because a) their league is so weak and b ) Pep seemed to have things in order there, so he should do - the team was existing for him when he went. Oh, until injury kept out Robben and Ribery, their only creative outlets. Like us losing Cesc and Eden at the same time. While we should be aware of this, we survived without one of them. Now, they tried to play attractive football without their key players (like us not having Costa or Remy and Willian) and lost to Porto, spectacularly. 2-0. It was a collapse. Neuer should have been sent off (similar to David De Gea for United) Now they are looking at going out of the CL to Porto. What's more humiliating, going out to PSG on away goals, having not actually been beaten (themselves a good side) or to Porto after being thumped despite a potential fight back at home? Then the club management is further destabilised when the club's medical team resign after being asked to take the blame and after being taunted by Pep. I can also guarantee Porto will park the bus, and rightly, there is no need in risking throwing away their lead for the sake of attacking. How does this relate to us being so nearly there in the title race (at the point where we were going up against United) - well, we knew a win would be a massive booster for the team, no matter the method. We also knew a loss would give both United and Arsenal a hope of catching us, and sow the seeds of doubt in our minds over whether we can do it. Therefore it would be silly not to respect United's danger men just for the sake of risky football and fulfilling some people's ego troubles who worry about what other teams think of us at such crucial times of our season. We've played our football, we've done the legwork, and now it's time to get over the line. It's just the way we had to set up to beat United with the players we had. Against Arsenal we can safely go with a standard lineup and we'll press and play well because Arsenal don't have the phsyciality to rush and bully us off the ball. But you know, same old tired arguments, of course. The model we should be aiming for is Barcelona. We're in the process of this but rebuilding a team takes time. Quote me on this next season if I'm wrong. But I'm really fucking tired of people moaning about us winning "badly" when we would almost certainly have lost had we played how we usually played against a team like United. EVERYBODY knows Matic-Fabregas would have been slaughtered. If I could like this post 10,000,000 times it would not be enough.
