That’s an arrogant title, isn’t it? Anyway, I don’t care because that’s what I feel. I do think our name is on the cup!
By the way, who do you think hates this draw more? Carlo Ancelotti or Alex Ferguson? I can’t help but feel this is a good draw for us. Looking at the quality of quarterfinalists, but for Schalke, you are only going to get a good opposition to play against. Drawing Man Utd, for me, is much better than drawing the Spanish teams or Inter. In fact, it’s even better than drawing Spurs. I’ll tell you why.
Drawing Madrid or Barca at this stage would have been dangerous. We’re just clawing back to form ‘after sleeping for 2 months’ as very nicely put by Carlo. Only that I thought we were sleeping for 4 months and not 2. I’m not sure how much we’d be back in form in the first week of April. I’d like to meet the Spanish giants only when the injured players have returned and we are in prime form. The way I see it, championgs-league-winning-prime-form looks weeks away.
Inter are a beatable team, certainly weaker than Chelsea but they’ve found some form under Leonardo. They seem to have been rejuvenated since Rafa Benitez’ exit. They can defend like an Italian team and hurt you when you take your eyes off. Right now we don’t want to play teams that will suck our attacks and counter us. While we are in the process of getting back to form, we need to play teams that play attacking football and allow chances to do out tippy-tappy stuff and score goals.
Tottenham would have been a good opponent but they might really fancy their chances against us given their recent record against us in the league. They might feel that they have a chance. They have fared very very well against the Milan teams. Their champions league momentum and overall club support might be a massive advantage for them.
I don’t mean to suggest that Man Utd are an easy opponent. They are a big team, tough to beat, especially with second leg at Old Trafford. The advantage is that, I think, Man Utd are under pressure and could be cracking. They are suddenly into serious injury concerns. Their defence is totally shattered and they didn’t get to play the same back four for three consecutive matches. Fergie fielded the same playing eleven for two consecutive matches after 150+ matches. He is into some massive act of jugglery. He has surprised me by leading the table given the quality of his squad. I have a feeling that he might just run out of gas come April.
Plus, we don’t need to make long travels. It’s just Manchester. Look at Barca. Having to travel all the way to Shakhtar. Good we avoided it. Helps our league title charge (it’s back on, isn’t it?). And isn’t it great that we don’t need to play the Spanish giants until the finals? If we get through beyond Man Utd, meeting Inter rather than Madrid/Barca is a much better prospect.
Playing the first leg at home might be seen as a drawback. It’s a drawback if we don’t use the advantage of playing at home first and making it count. The defending champions Inter, played the second leg against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, travelled to Russia to beat CSKA Moscow in the second leg, played the second leg against Barcelone at Camp Nou and still become European champions. That’s the round of 16, quarterfinals and semi finals – all second legs played away and still European champions. No mean feat. So my point is, first or leg doesn’t matter.
To answer the question I started with, I think Alex Ferguson must hate more that they are drawn with Chelsea. We’ve got the upper hand over them now with that fair and fantastic win over at Stamford Bridge plus we’ve started a bad run for Man Utd. We now get another chance to derail their premier league as well as champions league campaigns. And I think we are best placed to inflict this on them.
I do feel that we can get to the finals. I’m not being arrogant. I’ve always maintained that we’ve got one of the best squads in Europe and we play to our potential and to the best of our tactical abilities, we can go all the way. Can we win the champions league? Hell yes!
What do you think?
It’s not a bad draw.
United are formidable but beatable. They’re showing weakness on defense. Ferdinand may be out for the season.
But their attack is coming on, with Hernandez and Rooney playing very well. Giggs and Rooney were tremendous on Tuesday against Marseille. I hope Scholes and Giggs show their age and that Ferguson feels compelled to use them both in the league and the CL..
Home first leg is a definite disadvantage. Not insurmountable, of course. But it always helps to know exactly what you need to do when you play at home. So it’s an edge. Might make the difference in a very even contest.
One thing’s for sure, it’s a glamour match-up. Should be very exciting!
Second leg being away is a disadvantage but that’s the way things work in champions league isn’t it? At least, we got to play the second leg at Stamford Bridge in the last 16 game and if we get to the semi final, we would play the second leg at Stamford Bridge. Many times better than what happened to Inter last season – playing all knockout round second leg at away stadiums.
This is winnable!
I wouldn’t say it’s winnable after the last game performance against the danes…the worry was that a weaker team could have so much possession and control parts of the game and then hit the post early which had goal written all over it except for a coat of paint….on that perfomance we need to improve a lot to say we can be confident….in my view we still lose possession in critical parts of the field which only needs to happen once against a good team who will them burn you…we also only get width with our fullbacks who can be blocked with a well set defence…lastly I still think some of our stars have not found their form of the past…this weeks game should tell us more though as to how we are travelling.
I worry about the defense more than the attack against ManU.
The speed of Chicharito, Rooney, Giggs, Nani — those guys could make Chelsea’s defense look bad.
Perhaps Alex will be back by then. It would be nice to have choices.
European champions all the way….to be the best…you have to beat the best…great draw for us..i dont care who’s at home first or not…the plan still remains..score and dont concede….we can do this…KTBFFH!
trisdin,
Actually I wouldn’t read too much into the Copenhagen game this week. We knew that we were in driver’s seat. Copenhagen required a miracle to offset the home deficit. I thought we just went through the motions. But beware, we played well. We created lots of opportunities. It’s only that we couldn’t finish well. This is in start contrast to the ‘months that we slept’ where we couldn’t create chances to save our lives, we were pathetic and honestly, clueless. Now we are playing with confidence and with confidence comes the attacking mindset and the opportunities.
Honestly, this Man Utd squad and team is weak. They’re on top of the league only because of one man – TheRedKnight – Sir Alex. Their first choice first eleven is good and beyond this bunch, they’ve got nothing and no one. Fergie keeps rotating and putting in makeshift defences, makeshift midfields and still somehow gets his results.
They are missing these players: Paul Scholes, Ji-Sung Park, Anderson, Hargreaves, Rio Ferdinand, Nemanja Vidic, Darren Fletcher, O’Shea & Rafael da Silva. I wonder what would have happened to us if we were missing the equal and opposites on our side. The bottom line is, they are weak and they should be crumbling.
Look at this probable line-up for the Bolton match today: Van der Sar; Fabio, Brown, Smalling, Evra; Valencia, Gibson, Carrick, Nani; Rooney, Hernandez. Who’s the big personality here who can drive the team forward? Yes, nobody. Evra? Stop joking. The big personality for Man Utd is not on the pitch. He is at the dug out and in fact, he won’t be at the dug out too for the next five matches. And that’s a blessing in disguise for us. There would be an impact because of his absence in the dug out. For managers like Fergie, Jose, Rafa it matters a lot. Either because they keep communicating a lot or their mere sight acts as an inspiration for their players. For managers like Carlo, Harry, Arsene it doesn’t matter so much. They’re more into doing the homework and watching it unfold on the pitch.
Man Utd should start faltering exactly at this stage. I wish they drop points today. Bolton are a new animal. They’re not the old Bolton. They play ball now. Hope they stick it into Man Utd.
Hell yes. Bring on the fat gypsy scouser and his yob friends. Sir Onedayatatime must be crapping himself for all the reasons you say. I just want to see our fighting spirit displayed in the peripheral/journeymen players we have had to “rely on” whilst the blip was happening. Sure Ancellotti is “nice”, as were Ranieri and Grant(?), but since when does Chelsea do nice. There are some in our squad who are technically OK (at times) but who lack commitment and belief in themselves and the team. Furthermore I don’t believe they have the “bleed for Chelsea” attitude of Lamps and Terry. Malouda and Kalou would probably be OK in a Championship team somewhere but they are to satisfied with their own newspaper reports (the occasional positive ones). Drogba is another culprit – petulant and so far up his own backside – he’s forgotten(as have many others) how crap he was in his first season with us.
If the SpecialOne were back already and leading the team by example (regarding the French contingent above -true though!), then we wouldn’t be hearing this fear factor crap in the media.
Well done for supporting the team and saying “bring it on”. Its about time those other supporters (who whine and armchair manage team selection and purchase targets) followed suit. To them, keep singing it but believe it as well. We are Chelsea – Current Champions of England from the Capital (not some northern bastard mill town) and our name is on the CL Cup already. Man who?? Formidable – my ass! There a hyped up bunch of tossers.
Just the result of the draw I wanted. Manure are slowly but surely getting more and more in disarray. The lucky, but narrow victories they have had so far are steadily drying out. The injury list is getting longer and longer, Sir Red Nose 5 match touch line ban will effect their confidence and desperation will soon be a word synonymous with Manure.
Most people would have preferred to play Schalke or Donetsk, but those kind of teams are dangerous in the quarter final stages and often spring surprises. Manure we know how to beat.
So bring it on, this year is the year we will win that bloody big eared trophy.
(Chelsea fan) I for 1 was very ecstatic over the hearing of the draw. I assumed it was either going to be a barca-v-chelsea, or barca-v-manu, or chelsea-v-manu. And i agree that Ferguson is the unhappier of the 2 managers. And also we are the 3rd favourites to win the Champions league after Real and Barcelona. I feel this match could even be decided in the first leg. If we can win it at home, and avoid conceding, then even 1 goal at old trafford can set us through.
And besides, Manunited struggled a bit against Marseilles. We all do respect but Marseilles was one of the weakest opponents left in the competition.
princeakad,
Exactly. Well said from a true supporter!
BORINI scores on Swansea debut!!!
Borini scores again! Brace on debut, looking strong for a hattrick!!!
Borini been smoking the kush lately. Gave some Sinclair just now.
Ha.. ha.. ha.. what a load of polony! Wow, you guys really know how to talk smack. Chelsea are the happier team out of the two? The team at the top of the Barclays Premier league from the start of the season is quaking in their boots for a team who can’t score goals because they’ve been worked and sorted out. Then goes and buys a 50m GBP Fernando Torres who still can’t fire. Yet? Look I don’t make predictions because I don’t believe in that crap, but do you guys believe the nonsense that’s in your head before you type it. Me thinks, I better confiscate the stuff you guys are smoking? Cheers!
Rooney, Giggs, Nani, Hernandez and Berbatov (off the bench.)
I think you show United too little respect. They’re weakened. No question. But they still have fantastic players who deserve our respect.
No mate. I’m not saying they don’t have fantastic players. I was talking about leaders and characters that can drive them forward. They don’t have a Roy Keane, Gary Neville type of characters anymore. That was my point. Full respect to Rooney, Giggs, Nani, Hernandes and Berbatov.
Can somone please tell me why petr Cech gets diarrehea everytime when he faced a freekick????? He simply jut stands there every single time!!!!!!!!!
Well, without Fergie, with a decimated defense, playing poorly, down a goal and down to 10 men, they still hung on to beat a very good Bolton team with just minutes left.
I’d have to say there’s character and leadership somewhere in that equation.
Here’s a question on the test they give young American football players who aspire to a professional career.
What’s the answer?
“In printing an article of 48,000 words, a printer decides to use two sizes of type. Using the larger type, a printed page contains 1,800 words. Using smaller type, a page contains 2,400 words. The article is allotted 21 full pages in a magazine. How many pages must be in smaller type?”
Oops, United were not down a goal, sorry about that. it was 0-0.
wxwax,
Sure, they did. They’re not on top of the league by just luck and referees. They are there because of a very shrewd manager who’s managing a very limited squad. Hence my point is, we have a big opportunity. The 5-match touchline ban would have a big impact on Man Utd than it would for Chelsea if Carlo had got the ban.