So Man Utd have romped home to Fergie's 9th title...eventually, and all credit to them, the manner in which it has been done attracts all the right sort of superlatives. The problem is, the second we left British shores (or even crossed the border up north) the Manchester Utd which impressed so much in the Premiership, failed to emerge. I am a Man Utd fan, so I'm not just hating the success, and believe me I'm delighted with finally taking the premiership back off of Chelsea, and I'd take the Premiership ahead of the Champions League any day. I guess I'm being pedantic, but it's still a concern. Defeated by Celtic & Roma, should have been humbled by Lille (THAT goal) and then "mauled" by Milan to quote one newspaper article. Not really the stuff of champions. It seems bizarre that in the campaign that saw us reach the semi-finals and produce arguably the best European performance in our history (7-1 Roma, as if it needed said) there is scope for criticism, but the fact remains that Utd really struggle in big games. This isn't just a problem which occurs in Europe, and there are glimpses of it in the league (beaten twice by Arsenal, fortunate to beat Liverpool 1-0, and scraping a draw with Chelsea), but it seems that something is not working for Utd in away matches in Europe. It is possible that we will see Fergie pull in signings in the Juan Seb Veron mould to secure European success for the club, but until something changes, the Champions League hopes can go on the backburner for now I think. That said, if we win the FA cup, its another double, and this season will be remembered for all the right reasons, but there is a note of caution there, this is not the finished article. The reliance on Ronaldo is tantamount to that on Henry by Arsenal, and the effect of a dip in his form or injury does not need to be pointed out. Opinions?
Manchester united do get beat on there travels like any other team. I dont think united are a one track team at all (i agree with you about europe that they do struggle)but united are a very young team and they have got a lot more to come from them. Sir alex would love to win the champions league a bit more but at the moment they are probably not good enough.They also need a few more players yet to challenge in europe def a striker and a midfielder.
Fergie prefers to play very negatively when we're away in Europe. It's generally never worked and we've been second best in all epartments but the Milan game was us really at our weakest and we just ran out of steam. To even get the 3-2 at Old Trafford was incredible given the state of our first XI. I don't think we rely on Ronaldo at all. He's obviously a very important part of the team but we still score goals and win games even when he doesn't play well. Rooney has contributed with a lot of goals and a fair few assists, there have been other goals from all over the team, especially Vidic becoming a legitimate aerial threat from set-pieces and players like Giggs, Solskjaer, Scholes, Carrick and Smith have all hit form and piled in goals and assists. While Ronaldo is a large part of the team, he's got ot the stage where he's drawing 3 or four players to him whenever he gets the ball in the final third and that is an intangible element of his game and something cannot be measured on a stat sheet. That frees up other players and also causes defences to lose shape and creates more opportunities than any through balls or clever flick could. The measure of a good team is whether they can grind out wins even though they're off-the-boil or they're star players are faltering etc and we've done that.
