Boss: We pay the penalty
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Sir Alex offered no excuses for his side's shock exit from the Champions League after the 2-1 defeat in Basel.
Phil Jones' late header proved to be a mere consolation as goals from Marco Streller and Alexander Frei sent the Swiss side into the knockout stages at the Reds' expense.
United instead face Europa League football for the first time next year which will present a fresh challenge as it remains a trophy the Barclays Premier League champions have never won. Nevertheless, the necessary changes to the fixture schedule presents its own problems for the boss.
"Of course we're disappointed," he stated. "There's no other way you can feel.
"We had so much possession of the ball and so many really good opportunities in the last third of the field. Some of our play up to that point was very good but you have to say we let ourselves down with the finishing past.
"The Europa League is a competition I've never been in at United and it does mean one thing - Sundays right through. Thursdays and Sundays. That's got to be dealt with and it's not the best but that's our penalty for not qualifying tonight."
the man has said it. he will rotate and field his youngsters for Europa league, as it plays on Thurdays unlike CL, who plays on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
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I don't think he meant it that way....fielding the youngsters for europa league. Anyway, I watched the match and noticed that utd tend to spread play down the wings. It's been like that since the season began and it's getting so predictable that the Basel players already know where the balls would mostly come from. Doesn't help that nani and young, their form has dropped a lot.
Then when passes are made down the middle, it's down to Rooney and he has a very high mispass rate there. Maybe like 60-70%? So I wouldn't be surprised that Utd being the better technical team had more possession but there's no one to step up and really create and convert the chances.
This utd team needs a new player to come through and give some impetus. Maybe like another cantona or something.
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this must be the most disastrous CL results united have ever happened.
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Originally posted by Rock^Star:
I don't think he meant it that way....fielding the youngsters for europa league. Anyway, I watched the match and noticed that utd tend to spread play down the wings. It's been like that since the season began and it's getting so predictable that the Basel players already know where the balls would mostly come from. Doesn't help that nani and young, their form has dropped a lot.
Then when passes are made down the middle, it's down to Rooney and he has a very high mispass rate there. Maybe like 60-70%? So I wouldn't be surprised that Utd being the better technical team had more possession but there's no one to step up and really create and convert the chances.
This utd team needs a new player to come through and give some impetus. Maybe like another cantona or something.
I think that someone was meant to be Cleverley, to some extent. Pity he keeps getting injured. These few years, always kenna injury crisis-es at some point in the season. Kenna targetted or something wrong with the training program? hmm
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yes loss of CL income of 20m this season.
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Originally posted by Rooney_07:
this must be the most disastrous CL results united have ever happened.
well, they got it once when they lost to benfica and went out..
I think this season, things were taken a step further, cause there were many what-ifs given how talks on Scholes' replacement - WelseyS collapse, given how fletcher, carrick and anderson were found founding..
