"My dug-out is a special dug-out," said the Special One. "I have a special door in the dug-out that means I can leave directly to the dressing-rooms."The only disappointment being that we didn't get the away goal (or two) our play deserved, as Henry Winter in The Telegraph puts it:
How United reached the break without a goal was a travesty of sporting justice, pure and simple.We have universal praise in the papers, with only the usual cliches about Rooney's booking ruining the picture, only Matt Lawton in The Mail calls the Rooney booking correctly:
Rooney was eventually unleashed, but with only seven minutes remaining. He did manage to get booked, unfairly, it has to be said, when Cordoba was the more reckless.Here's some of the good. Oliver Holt in The Mirror:
Because if Mourinho knew how United were going to line up, if he knew how to prepare for them, how come he had to stand by his dugout and watch United play Inter off the park in their own stadium?
For all Mourinho's bluster about this Inter team being a match for the English champions, it was clear United were in a different league.
If Inter conjure a victory out of this tie after the way they were picked apart last night, then it will feel like if not the death of football, then at least a heavy blow to its solar plexus.
And as for Mourinho's boast that Zlatan Ibrahimovic should have been voted the best player in the world ahead of Cristiano Ronaldo, that seemed like a bad joke. ...
In fact, you have to work hard to find anyone who's ever seen him have a good game. Last night was no different.
How was Ronaldo better than Ibrahimovic? Let me count the ways. He was a better header of the ball. A bigger threat from free-kicks. He ran with the ball to greater intent. His shots were more dangerous. ...His first half was magnificent, a constant bundle of energy where Ibrahimovic burst into life only in shudders, like a sound system with a short. The odd eye-catching pass aside he was rendered anonymous by a highly makeshift Manchester United defence and the one shot at goal went out by the corner flag to sarcastic cheers from the travelling support.
They would have been looking up the pitch to Ronaldo's best work, which was a shame, as it did not draw the roars of appreciation merited.
The repertoire is familiar and perhaps we are too blasé about it now. We no longer ooh and aah over the blur of stepovers, dummies, flicks and tricks that are executed, often in mid-stride. We should.
This is the best team in Italy, remember, one of the best teams in the world, and they had nobody who could execute anything like it. They did not have an aerial threat like Ronaldo, either - where are they now, those people who said he chickened out against Manchester City that time - and two of the goals he could have scored in the opening 30 minutes were with his head.
The free-kicks we know, too. The five steps back, the one to the side, the trajectory, fierce and low and never more than a hair's breadth from the target. Within 30 minutes, Julio Cesar, the Inter Milan goalkeeper, had saved one and scrambled to his post in fear of another.
Ronaldo had electrified the San Siro in a way that was beyond compare. Ibrahimovic? The thinking man's Dimitar Berbatov. He must have some magnificent games while our backs are turned, though
Carrick, Ryan Giggs and Darren Fletcher worked triangles around black-and-blue shirts. Mourinho’s men chased shadows in red.Matt Lawton praises us from top to bottom:
In every area United were better. In defence, where Rio Ferdinand was terrific and a patched-up Jonny Evans again excelled as deputy to the suspended Nemanja Vidic; in midfield, where Michael Carrick delivered another marvellous, mature display alongside the tireless Darren Fletcher, and in attack, where Ryan Giggs was terrific as a foil to Dimitar Berbatov and Cristiano Ronaldo demonstrated to Mourinho that it is an insult to even mention Ibrahimovic in the same breath.Oliver Kay in The Times singles out Evans for praise, while also noting the job was made easier by Inter's lack in attack:
United, though, remained composed, not least Evans, who, having passed a late fitness test on a sprained ankle, ensured that Nemanja Vidic’s suspension was not a serious factor. He was helped by half-hearted performances from Adriano and Ibrahimovic, who in turn were hindered by a lack of quality service from the midfield, but, considering the size of the occasion, Evans handled himself magnificently.A point made more forcibly by Daniel Taylor on The Guardian blog:
this Inter side, when you take away all the posturing of Jose Mourinho, are not actually that impressive. A better side would surely have done more to single out Evans on a night when the young centre-half had to play the biggest match of his life with a badly swollen ankle. Or they would have cottoned on much earlier to the fact that O'Shea, also playing after a late fitness test, might be vulnerable if Zlatan Ibrahimovic went directly against him. ...The strange thing was that United had this experimental new defence and their opponents took so long to work out that it could be to their advantage.
The best team in Italy, playing in front of their raucous fans in Europe's biggest competition, lurched between mediocre and abysmal throughout the first half, and could scarcely have made it a less demanding occasion for those United players nursing injuries.
There will be some rueful reminiscences this morning about missed chances and also, perhaps, about Ferguson’s failure to intervene in the second half when set against Mourinho.
Among the Portuguese’s many talents is the ability to change the momentum of a game, whether through a team-talk, a substitution — sometimes three at a time — or a handwritten note sent on the pitch.
Last night, he must have said something stirring at half-time, on top of replacing Nelson Rivas, a liability of a centre half, to turn potentially a lost cause into something for Inter to cling to.
As United supporters journeyed home last night, they might reasonably have asked whether Ferguson should have been similarly quick to intervene, particularly given the range of options. If starting without Wayne Rooney could be regarded as vindicated by United’s excellence in the first half, holding him back until the 84th minute seemed perverse because there was no attacking outlet in the second half, with Dimitar Berbatov frustratingly quiet.
This, in The Mail, has a good selection of post match comments, including Mourinho's bizarre comments on the referee:
'If we go to Old Trafford and we don't have the same referee - but we have one who will give the away team so much protection - then my team will get to the quarter-final.'I don't want to go into details of things like how we didn't have a penalty. Everything was against us, every little detail. You watch how many free-kicks they had and we had. The way we got yellow cards and they did not. I think the tendency was clear.'
The United boss said: 'Is he serious? I saw a marvellous refereeing performance.
'The referee was not intimidated and Jose would have been hoping he was. But he was not intimidated. He was first class.'
"We played very well. In the second half, for 10 or 15 minutes, they presented a bit of pressure, which we expected, but other than that we played very, very well, with good composure and maturity. I think we're playing very well at the moment, it doesn't matter who we are playing against."The Sun has some brief comments from Rooney and Ronaldo:
The Portugal winger said: "We played better than Inter in my opinion.
"We created more chances, especially in the first half. But we didn't score.
"We have the second leg at home. We have a better chance than here.
"I know here is always difficult to play but we've shown we are a great team and we deserved to win."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment