Lost in Translation

A story I missed from my initial round up is this look at Johan Cruyff's comments on us playing the long ball from The Times:

There is justification for expecting informed and balanced judgments from Cruyff, so it was a jolt to read reports that he had been accusing Manchester United of relying heavily on long-ball tactics.

Even when carefully rendered, however, Cruyff’s analysis over-simplifies the problems Barcelona face as they enter the Champions League semi-finals as the sole non-English contenders. He is a trusted adviser of the Catalan club’s president, Joan Laporta, but last week’s comments will have less relevance as a guide to coping with United than as an attempt to stir optimism among Barça fans plunged into trepidation about their European prospects by the inadequacy of the form that has left their team trailing embarrassingly behind Real Madrid in La Liga. Having praised Ferguson’s men as the best of the three Premier League squads in the semi-finals, he assured his constituency that in Manchester there was a corresponding conviction that Barcelona were the most dangerous opposition they could be confronting. That is an unconvincing assertion. A hectic “domestic” involving Chelsea or Liverpool would have been a more daunting assignment.