Inter - Man Utd (24 Feb 09)

Nyall2008 said:

Thank you! Finally a post that makes sense! You people need to stop listening to that idiotic Asslicker and start using some common sense.

Manchester United played without Vidic and came to the San Siro to DEFEND! We were without Samuel and did not CONCEDE!! I don't care where the fuck we play but with Sammy and Chivu/Cafe we still have a great defense! And with JC we can be godlike!

If we scored 1 fucking goal at OT and they will need 2!

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I agree with these posts completely. Although it was an embarrassing first 30 mins. But hey, this is Inter.

I dont get why people are so disapointed. Im not. Maybe it's because I've prepared myself for a total humiliation for the last month. The first half was what I had been expecting. Thank god we have the best keeper in the world. In the second half we came out and pushed them back for a good period of time before the game leveled out again.

Compared to our starts in the last two season against worse oposition we have a much better chance of doing something good in the second leg.

2-2 against Valencia at home was far worse.

2-0 away to Liverpool was disaster, the game was dead after 90 minutes.

0-0 against United is alot better. With a lucky goal on a corner kick in the 89th minute we can go through. With both Samuel and Cordoba ready for that game I have no doubt we can keep the score down and maybe get a lucky goal to draw.

It's also funny that the people who always preaches that we're shit publically seem to be the most disapointed and upset that we didnt win against the World and European Champions.

The only think that disappointed me is that I think we should've won, whether someone says Man Utd had more chances or not, their chances were saved by our goalkeeper, we didn't score cause of us, not cause of them.

My take on this game is the following:

• Mou was obviously wrong with starting Rivas ahead of Cordoba. We all know that in the Champions League you can't make a single mistake and he almost gifted Giggs a goal which would've ended our hopes
• Manchester United comes from a different class of ours, let's admit it they're just better than us in every line.
• Julio Cesar is world class
• Most of our players did well, but since Manchester United played exceptionally well it seemed that we played so bad. I have to point out Zanetti, Santon, Cambiasso, Ibrahimovic, Chivu and Cordoba.

RDJ said:

I think it was December last season we last lost at O.T. This is our 20th consecutive CL game without a loss.

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Good then you guys can crash out of CL with out losing a game.

I dont get it, if manu were so good, like you guys say, why did they seem so content with the scoreless draw? Dont gimme the bullshit that an away draw is good in Europe, now they'll have to be on their toes at all time in OT, even after they score a goal.

On the other hand a big deal is being made of ManU not scoring an away goal. A draw away from home is always advantageous. There is a physcilogical issue with home teams preferring a 0-0 rather than a 2-1 result.
We were very poor in the first half, but as the game wore on we got much better. Mourinho should have learned not to experiment with the lineup in CL. Rivas was playing for Manu, just like Muntari.
Mourinho with his usual crying of ref. I think he didnt see that Ibra's offside, otherwise he would have made a huge deal out of it. Ibra through on goal, just the keeper to beat, and was flagged offside, instead Mourinho talked about the Adri penalty incident, which wasnt there, as Adriano dived. We do need to get better at diving, as Carrick, Park and Ronaldo all had a ball today diving. And most of the time, they would dive, they would get a free kick. Pretty agitating.
Also Evra's hand ball was not given. That should have been a yellow to him, as he blatantly blocked a good cross, freakin idiot.

Hopefully Vieira and Samuel will be back for the retun leg, and Mancini will alteast make the god damn bench. I would say its 60-40 for them to qualify.

Anyway some of the positives of this game.

United hardly did anything in the second half. Their defence was very organized. But when they will be forced to attack in Manchester they will leave big gaps in their defence. Alex Ferguson came to play anti-football, and got the result that they wanted.
We won almost all the long balls, thanks to Adriano and Ibra. That will be crucial in Manchester
Santon's handling of Cristiana.
Cambiasso and Zanetti's performance. Our midfield suffered cause both Stan and Muntari were asleep. Actually Muntari was awake and playing for ManU.
J.Cesar in goal. Very few words to descrube him.

Stankovic was one of our best performers last night.

Julio Cesar certainly the Man of the Match. Cambiasso was great, Zanetti had some very good moments and Adriano didn't lose a single battle on air, but he looked extremely hesitant with the ball at feet.

Point is, even if we do manage to get through, we need creative midfielders that will give chances to the strikers, since most of our gameplan is either Maicon playing one-twos and advancing towards the area or Ibrahimovic or Adriano giving passes to midfielders in the area who miss the chances as they are not very good offensively.

I can really see Mourinho trying to use Figo or Jimenez at Old Trafford.

shahz_nerazzurri said:

We do need to get better at diving, as Carrick, Park and Ronaldo all had a ball today diving. And most of the time, they would dive, they would get a free kick. Pretty agitating.

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This strategy was very interesting to me, as I don't follow Man U normally. I wouldn't call it 'diving' per say. They actually draw the defender to commit a foul. Ronaldo would slightly dribble the ball to the side and then run into the defender, with no intention of going through. SAF clearly asking them to look for free kicks, as they were extremely dangerous from all of them. Dirty buggers.

CArrick jumped over Zanetti with out any contact, looks plain diving to me. So did Park and Ronaldo. In one instance Ronaldo was already half way to the ground before Balotelli even touched him.
There free kickers are million miles better than us. It was getting a little annoying. I wish the refs would start giving them out yellow cards.

Morinio surely should has the biggest blame for how the team played, specially the with the line-up and the called-up players. Mancini and Vieira are the players that can be alot of help for second match because they have the technique to keep the ball and pass players.

My line-up for second leg:

JC-Maicon-Samuel-Chivu-Santon-Cambiasso-Zanetti-Vieira-Stankovic(Mancini)-Adriano-Ibra

For fucksake just play like you played against Juve and AC Milan and you are through!

shahz_nerazzurri said:

CArrick jumped over Zanetti with out any contact, looks plain diving to me. So did Park and Ronaldo. In one instance Ronaldo was already half way to the ground before Balotelli even touched him.
There free kickers are million miles better than us. It was getting a little annoying. I wish the refs would start giving them out yellow cards.

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What about adriano ?

Just felt like falling ?

futbol said:

What about adriano ?

Just felt like falling ?

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As you can see in my previous post, I clearly did admit Adriano dived. Even if Mourinho the idiot thinks it was a penalty.
I blame it entirely on the ref. With the number of free kicks manu were getting because of diving, you cant really blame Adriano for assuming that the ref was blind, and trying to play that to his advantage.

Really stupid by him though. Had he stayed on his feet, that could have actually resulted in a goal.

futbol said:

What about adriano ?

Just felt like falling ?

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But on the other hand, Fletcher must've seen/heard of Dida getting hit by a flare so he was jump, duck and rolling in case he was on fire and didn't notice it.

By the way to Hussein: Manchester United is on a whole different level then us? Please. We have better strikers, better defenders and a better goalkeeper, that leaves midfield, throw a creative midfielder in there and we play like we did in the second half or like someone else mentioned like we did against BBilan or JuBe we would fucking annihilate them.

Ehsan said:

This strategy was very interesting to me, as I don't follow Man U normally. I wouldn't call it 'diving' per say. They actually draw the defender to commit a foul. Ronaldo would slightly dribble the ball to the side and then run into the defender, with no intention of going through. SAF clearly asking them to look for free kicks, as they were extremely dangerous from all of them. Dirty buggers.

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This is what I wanted to say. Even Jurassic Park is using the same 'strategy'. I thought he is more fair player comparing to CR

Jurassic Park lmfao!

First of all, we're not out of CL. Not yet. And that's a huge improvement from
Mancio's side. Also, we didn't CONCEDE, which we all thought we will.

Secondly, some has to say this, Mourinho should stop being too harsh with players that make mistakes. Benching Cordoba since Atlanta's game just cause one of the three goals was his fault is stubbornness.

About last days game, we played a really bad first 30 minutes, and we almost conceded two or three goals cause of that.

Mourinho gave the players the "Do you call this a performance of champions?" between the two halves and we played decently in the second half.

We didn't have as many chances as they did as they gave our players hard time with their team pressure, while our players, aside from Cambi and Zanetti, usually were waiting for the player to control the ball then proceed to him.

I think Santon did very well, he deserved about 7.5. He won every one-on-one on CR7, and I thought he's not that good defensively!

In the first half, Man Urine were playing with their usual one line midfield, while we had our midfield in the usual diamond, and their midfield had an advantage whenever they attacked or defended because whenever they attack they have two players attacking, and whenever they defend they have two players defending, while we only had one. Anyway, Mourinho knew that and came to the second half with a one line midfield and that's why we saw Stanko defending more, and Cambi attacking more.

Maicon was held up by Park, that's why Park didn't go out early.

Ibra did well, but our attack was very slow. I remember a particular moment where he held up the ball for about 20 seconds and no one ran into an empty space. Disgusting.

As for Cesar, he saved our asses yesterday. Giggs' save and Rooney's last minute save were exceptional. Whenever we needed an extraordinary save, he came up with it. I have never seen such a performance by a keeper in a long time. I really can't believe that we have the same GK that we had in 2005. Grande Cesar.

Enough said, 0-0 is a not so bad result. At least we don't need to turn the table or anything. Hopefully the players won't have a crap start in OT, God knows what happened when Roma did..

Mour didn't suppose to see such MU - there were memories of 2004-06-like MU in his mind, when faster Chelsea players have beaten glory hunters 4-5 times in 2 years.

Now he has a fortnight to think a lot about the game on OT. And I hope, the things will go better for us there

Alright I haven't posted after the game. The game highlighted our weaknesses so prominently.
There is no semblance of passing anywhere. Everyone just passed the ball on to Maicon and Zlatan and hoped they would do wonders. Half the time Maicon had the ball and surrounded by two MAnu players with no one to pass to. Worse no Inter player ever went near him to take the ball. Pathetic.

Santon did decent but I hope he gets forward more. There was no support on the left flank. Cambiasso was very good. Zanetti did well as well and went on his usual runs that don't have any output.

Something in the midfield has to change. We couldn't string a single pass there.

Zlatan was very good. What a player! What technique and control :star:

Our midfield are too physical, We need more creativity. I just hope Inter spend their money right in the summer for some deserved midfielders.

We desperately needed someone to cross. Since we were getting nothing down the middle, cause of our lak of creativity, and truck load of midfielders, we were forced to rely on the wings, and our crossing was just god awful. Thats why it would have been smarter to remove Muntari by 50-55th minute and introduce Figo. Figo can play for 30-35mins, once every 2-3weeks, and sadly enough the 36 year old is the best crosser we have in our team.

Also why doesnt Adriano take free kicks anymore? Maicon is so god damn poor at it.

I think mou made 3 or 4 big mistakes...
starting Rivas, not calling up viera and mancini and bringin on 2 FW when we need dominance in midfield!
I dont like viera but think he would've been the key in midfield (forget about Lpool game), maicon need someone like him to make 1,2 passes with and he knows english sides better than any of our players.
playing with 3 CFs and long balls doesnt make any sence against teams like MU.
Jc proved himself to Epl FanBs, santon was great and cambiasso cambiasso cambiasso.
we still have a slight chance.